Chickenhouse - you're being too dogmatic about that. Many pilot's log books sold in the UK have a column headed "Passenger - for interest only" and it is quite OK for Westley to record the flights he takes as a passenger and tot up the hours in that column. BUT those hours don't count for anything in terms of gaining his licence.
And as he's recording time spent as a passenger, he should record the whole flight time for this to make any sense - not the time he spends handling the controls. Which opens up the second worm-can: is it allowed for a passenger to take the controls of a single pilot aeroplane when the PIC is not an instructor? General view that I encounter is that it is perfectly OK as long as it is fully understood that PIC is always PIC and is responsible for the conduct of the flight.
But, having said all that, although the situation Westley describes may be sort-of legal, it is really bad practice. Passengers taking the controls for a few minutes in the cruise is one thing, but a passenger doing all of the flight apart from the landing? No way is that safe, or helpful to Westley's learning. The guy who is PIC is being pretty dumb if you ask me.
Don't do it.
Last edited by Heston; 26th Apr 2015 at 07:56.
Reason: decided I agree with Chickenhouse more that I thought I did :)