PIC, Pu/t, sole manipulator, when common sense (and the law) is applied then it is obvious that if a pilot is outside of the 90 day ruling then the only other pilot that is legal to be on board is one that is authorised to be there.
That said as a practical person I do buy into the argument (to a point) that having another pilot on board would be safer than not, especially if you are a pilot who has few hours total and has not flown for some time. However for a moment imagine a senario (possibly not uncommon):
Pilot A has about 60 hours total, and completed his PPL four years ago and has not flown for four months, with only five hours in the last year. Basically he is, like many, a pilot who has to think about how to fly and everything is mechanical rather than natural.
He asks Pilot B, his PPL pal, along to act as a safety pilot while he does his required landings. This appears a wise decision even if not strictly legal. His PPL pal has maybe a hundred hours total and 10 hours in the last year but no instructor training or formal safety pilot training.
They take off, bimble around the circuit and his mate starts giving him some pointers on flying a tidier circuit, or a power setting or maybe points out the the flaps have been left down. All this adds to stress on the part of Pilot A. On short finals something happens, maybe Pilot A gets overloaded, maybe Pilot B (not a trained instructor remember) gets overly nervous, the upshot being that Pilot B takes control. Had he been by himself he hopefully would have gone around, thought about what happened, and corrected. Had he had an instructor onboard then there would have been a formal change of control, a discussion about what happened and then continue. However the situation now is finely balanced and possibly tense. Pilot B soon realises that his controls are in the opposite sense due to sitting in the right hand seat, if he flies wing down for crosswind his eyeline is different, it all feels very unnatural..... what happens next? Hopefully a successful landing but as has already been mentioned that is not always the case.
Personally after about six years flying Islanders I became a company examiner, I soon discovered that while hardly having to think about flying the thing from the left seat in crosswinds regularly 30kts, flying it from the right was a different matter. The picture out was different, my hands had to move in the opposite direction to normal for a go around, it all took a lot more thought. If you have no experience flying from the right hand seat then it might be wise to do a bit with a competent person in the left before safety piloting someone who has not flown for some time.
Last edited by VP-F__; 26th November 2012 at 19:56.