Lonewolf 50
I would think PNF would have been PIC in the Captain's absence. He had by far the greater total hours and hours in type, of the two, IIRC. Although, he had just come off "vacation"-- here another need to examine the French wording... off several weeks vacation, or was it that his mandated turn-around rest had been a little short of the required hours? Did I read correctly that PNF had just completed a [short?] rest in the rest cabin; did the Captain ask if he had gotten enough rest?
Again, PNF was sitting in the LH seat; ie, that otherwise occupied by the Captain. Now given the logistics of moving around in the cockpit this may have been just convenience of the moment. On the other hand, the A/C seems designed to be flown in emergency more conveniently from the LH seat.
Well, regardless of what one thinks of that, there can be not doubt that if you want to have some idea of what the pilot actually flying is seeing on his screens, datawise, then the pilot flying has to be sitting in the LH seat. Of course, we would still not know if the pilot actually flying was actually looking at the particular screen for which we would know the data.
But it does suggest to me there should be a policy that the PIC sit in the LH seat, and that the normal procedure in emergency should be for the PIC to request that control be turned over to him. (I do recognize that there are conditions when not making a change could be better, but this does not seem to have been such here.)
I agree we need to know French and AF custom in this regard, and indeed AB' thoughts on which side is better for control in emergency-- given AB did not treat each side the same. It would certainly be helpful for tenancy of the LH seat to indicate the chain of command, in cases such as this.
One other thought... This minature SS seems in this situation only to have the virtue of saving weight. Wasn't this control orginally devised for situations having many g's, where a pilot could at most only move his fingers? Certainly at 2 g's a skier can support his whole body, and easily move his arms about. --OE