Before the thread turns into a multi-crew bragging fest... Been reading this thread with interest. In my very limited experience (PPL with < 130 hours PIC), I have done a few long-ish flights with pilots as passengers and still find that a bit more scary than flying with "normal" passengers. Even the call "final is clear" before entering the runway surprised me, although I do see the merit in that. I've also been passenger in the RHS of a SEP, and I've twice been passenger in the RHS of a MEP (which I'm not qualified for) where the PIC was kind enough to let me handle the flying, navigation and radio during the whole flight, except for landing and T/O. I've even had a birdstrike on short final when I was PIC, but with a very experienced instructor sitting next to me. He let me handle the landing and was kind enough to do the R/T when I asked him to.
Together with reading this thread, I think I have come up with a few basic principles:
- If I would not be happy executing the flight on my own, or with a normal passenger, a pilot in the RHS is not going to make a difference in my go/no go decision regardless of his qualifications.
- I expect all passengers, including those who hold a pilots license, to help me with the lookout.
- I'm the commander of the aircraft, nothing happens without my say-so. I don't know multi-crew CRM procedures so uncommanded actions by the PNF scare me. Even if they're just presetting a frequency in the standby field.
- There are some specific duties that I'd want to share with someone else, if and when required:
* Your controls: fly the aircraft on suchandsuch altitude, on suchandsuch heading (or towards a distinctive landmark). Do not make turns or altitude changes unless I say so. Starts and landings I do myself in any case. Same for all the pre-takeoff checklists.
* Your R/T: Perform routine radio calls, but don't make decisions wrt. accepting clearances, changing routes etc unless we've discussed it.
* Your navigation: Happy if you keep your finger on the map but be prepared to brief me at any given moment, and in any case I want to know about any navigation fix we pass, and any heading/altitude change we need to make.
- In general: if the passenger takes on a duty, I expect him to keep me in the loop.
- Emergencies: are in principle mine to handle. But someone earlier on here mentioned that if there's a brain overload situation, it's best to let the passenger handle the relative standard stuff like flying the aircraft and talking to ATC, and the complex, aircraft-specific stuff, like restarting an engine, reconfiguring the electric circuits and so forth, could be handled by the person who is most familiar with the aircraft, and who most likely has best access to the relevant knobs and switches - ie. the person in the LHS.
I think both single-pilot and multi-pilot operations are very safe. It's when you start mixing these without expressing exactly what you want done, and how, that things get dangerous.