Originally Posted by
Clinton McKenzie
In the scenario in which you are receiving a flight review eventually logged as PIC and instruction received time, whom do you consider to have ultimate ‘responsibility’ for the safety of the flight? You? Or the person from whom you’re receiving instruction?
I alway considered myself responsible for the safety of the flight but have never had a confict between what the "reviewer" wanted me to do and what I considered safe. I would never let a reviewer put me in a situation I thought was unsafe.
I recently gave a flight review to a friend and we did a few landing that were close to his cross wind limit. I briefed that he should discontinue any time he felt unsafe with the conditions. He stuck with it, and with quite a bit of coaching, ended up handling the conditions reasonably well. I had lots of time right seat in his aircraft and was prepared to take control if needed. If he had said "enough" he would still have been given a satisfactory review sign off.
There are a few, but not many, times since solo that I have considered someone else responsible for the safety of the flight. Those include MEL training, SES training, and the few times I got some left seat time during part 91 flight test of large turbine aircraft.