(i) When the pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls of an aircraft for which the pilot is rated,
There is your answer.....the rest of that sentence had an "or" in front of it.
This is what doesn't make any sense to me (but then it doesn't really matter what makes sense to me. It is about what makes sense to the FAA).
My $0.02: (i) through (iv) must be exclusive clauses to make any sense, even in the absence of "or" / "and".
Which brings us right back around to what does being the handling pilot have to do with PIC/SIC designation in a multicrew environment? Who is logging it when the autopilot is engaged? What about when the pilots are regularly swapping "pilot flying" / "pilot not flying" roles during a single flight?
This mindset does seem rather entrenched with FAA pilots. For example, when two captains are scheduled together for a flight the FAA pilots will tend to consider the PIC/SIC designation as synonymous with PF/PNF allocation for the entire flight.
A good Captain will allow the Co-Pilot fly as much as possible to facilitate the building of PIC Time for the less experienced Pilot.....if you want him/her to move ahead professionally.
We do have a responsibility as Professionals to mentor our subordinates do we not?
For your second statement, absolutely. The other systems I've operated under do cater for this:
The Captain always logs PIC time for the entire flight.
The Co-Pilot logs either:
1. SIC time; or
2. PICUS (or P1/US depending upon terminology). This is not the same as straight PIC time, and it must be countersigned by the Captain. It is recognized by the regulatory body (sometimes with a weighting) towards the grant of licences etc.
For your first statement, my thoughts are that by the time a pilot reaches a multicrew role they often don't need work on "manipulating the controls" of yet another (probably easier to fly) helicopter... Decision making, multicrew CRM, operational considerations etc tend to make good topics for the mentoring IMHO. But if PIC time is only obtained when the copilot is concentrating on hand-flying the helicopter.....?
Rotorbee: reading this paragraph in your link would seem to suggest that two people can log PIC time for the same flight provided it is a multicrew operation:
However, two pilots may not simultaneously log PIC when one pilot is
sole manipulator of the controls and the other is acting as pilot-in-command if the regulations governing the flight do not require more than one pilot.