Beagle,
I hear what you say about the point of view that only qualified instructors should give instruction. But let me explain what I am getting at.
What exactly is the USE of a copilot course?
Just like being a virgin or not, there is no "half PPL". So one either spends the full 6k-8k, logs the lot, and gets a PPL which needs the 12hrs/2yrs logging, etc etc. Or one spends 1k-2k on a copilot course with an instructor, logs the lot (which for nearly all such people will be wasted since they will never do the full PPL) and they have a dozen entries in a nice proper logbook which is completely useless since they still cannot legally land the plane. They can fly it en-route, but anybody can do that (let's not start another thread on that one
).
Reading the Lydd link, the things there are the things which any proficient PPL with a few hundred hours on type can show someone how to do and do so (in the case of e.g. a spouse or a friend) for free. Apart from takeoff/ landing which as I say is probably illegal to let someone do (and would be unwise anyway).
Another scenario: let's say you are the owner of a decent plane. I know full well how hard it is to find an instructor who knows what half the bits in it do. I had enough trouble getting my type conversion. Never heard so much b*ll regarding autopilot function and engine management for example. So what does one do then? In the end the only decent "instructor" was a CofA tester with 3k hours on the type. Instructors tend to know C150 C152 PA28s.
The real point is that while anybody can fly a plane en-route (and it is real easy to teach most people how to do that - I've done it enough times; even basic control in IMC is easy enough for some after say 10 mins of practice, with a 2nd horizon/2nd altimeter), a landing is something which the "copilot" would need to do ONLY ONCE, that is if the real pilot dropped dead. So it doesn't have to be perfect. If the plane stays in one piece, that's good enough. One could well argue that the "copilot" should, declaring an emergency obviously, simply go for the nearest ILS and fly it with the autopilot and close the throttle upon contact.
That's the whole point of a copilot course: to land the plane if the pilot is incapacitated. You can't teach someone to land a plane in various different conditions in 10 hours, and they can't do it legally anyway...