Quote from
megan:
"Terry, he was not a passenger. He was listed on the accident report (which they blithely describe as an "incident") as a crew member, and he was logging all the hours during which he was a so called "passenger". Passengers do not log hours, and nor are they "crew". The question is, why did they both describe themselves as crew, and why were both of them logging the hours? TCT was nominated in the report as PIC, so in what capacity was Ewald logging time - Copilot, ICUS, navigator, radio operator?"
Quite. I imagine the minimum legal crew-complement on a Stearman is one pilot? From her own account, we can assume that Ms Curtis-Taylor has logged all the sectors as PIC. If they had been official training flights she would have had to record them as P3.
Fifty years ago, like so many students before and since, every hour I could log was relevant to the acquisition of licences. After my obtaining a CPL there was a lot of hanging about between trips on the Cessna 310 (@£30/hr...
) for the IR course. Meanwhile, guys on later courses were at the stage of needing to build their I/F hours on singles, and this demanded the services of a safety pilot. We were assured that a safety pilot could log the hours as P2, on the basis of being "an essential member of the operating crew."
Several years later, having passed the ground exams and carefully counted my hours in the various capacities stipulated, I presented my logbook to Shellmex House (by then aka UK Board of Trade, Civil Aviation Department) in application for my ATPL. In my airline, the date of its acquisition - believe it or not - would establish a pilot's position in the queue for a command course in years to come. About 35 of the P2 hours logged were on the Cessna 150, annotated "Safety Pilot". They were unhesitatingly disallowed, despite my protests, and I had to reapply about a fortnight later.
From what I hear, Mr Gritsch is not exactly struggling to build up his flying hours!