Pfffff...Really?

As I read Mr Bgbazz, the shift of CoG by one person moving from front to rear is very closely offset by another person, of equal weight and build, moving from rear to front. I may have missed something, of course.

You missed nothing Jan...I can feel very little when they are changing seats and don't even bother re trimming. Mr Examiner would find his flight with me and the family very boring indeed. Thank God I don't have a spare seat for such a self important person.

When examining, yes, sure, of course, and I'd be disappointed if you did not painstakingly review, perhaps even discuss, the w&b calculation sheet with your candidate.

You are not here as an examiner, however; you are just one more contributor of answers to the original question of "is it legal?".

and that makes my questioning of his preparation irrelevant?

however, I will go back to my original point, how anyone thinks it’s not an act of crass stupidity moving people around in a light aircraft is beyond me, legal or not......

Yes really Sam. Take a look at that blue stamp in your logbook and the signature under it.... ;)

Which brings me back to my first response - RTQ. Nobody's asking your opinion on whether you think it's sensible or not. But thank you for sharing...

S-works, I think we've all caught on to the fact that you have a strong opinion about this. But as others have mentioned, the question was not whether it was wise or not. I fully agree that in most cases (almost every case) it would not be a smart thing to do, but I could also think of a situation where changing seats might enable someone to successfully complete a flight while staying in your seat could lead to a crash. Without going into specifics, what I'm trying to say is that it is all very good to expect pilots to follow the rules at all times, but when someone gets in a bind, we also expect that pilot to use of of his/her creativity to get him/herself out of that bind. If that includes swapping seats, I wouldn't want that pilot to get caught up in the mantra of 'the law forbids this... I must not do it'.

After the fact it is easy to be judgmental, so we'll be just as quick in judging someone when an in-flight seat swap leads to a crash, as we'll be in congratulating someone when an in-flight seat swap saves the airplane and its crew/passengers. The line between recklessly endangering the flight and being the hero of the day is very thin, and is very much dependant on the eventual outcome. I think it is a good thing that the law doesn't specifically forbid the practice, apart from the CAA's rule about non-EASA types. Yet I won't go around advocating it as a serious option, don't worry about that. The law provides us with a defined playing field within which we can operate aircraft, but not all edges of that playing field are hard black-or-white borders. The topic starter asked us a question about one of these borders and we've done our best to figure out if this particular edge is black-white or whether there may be a bit of a grey area.

Funnily enough, we've been talking about this from a UK/Europe perspective and no-one has caught on to the fact that the topic starter is in Auckland (according to the profile info bit) and all of what we've found out may be completely irrelevant. I don't expect the rules to be all that different, but still....

Fascinating and cavalier attitude to flight safety, I guess why our accident ratio differs.......

I remember doing this all the time when training for the ATPL. Made much more use of a sortie for all involved but there was always someone qualified at the controls.

Like everything, there is a time and a place and 200’ on finals or in severe turbulence is probably not it. Common sense rather than rules? IANAL but like others, I don’t see any prohibition of the practice so it’s up to you on the day...

Just because there are no written rules preventing does not make something acceptable. Common sense should prevail and good airmanship is about good decision making and not being cavalier about safety. I would consider moving between seats in a light aircraft as showing a very cavalier attitude to flight safety.

Yes, so would most pilots, I reckon, here and elsewhere. Certainly including myself. But again and again and again: SUCH WAS NOT THE ORIGINAL QUESTION.

The original question is not able to be answered unless we have all the details. Aircraft type, country that it is located and the register it is on for starters as laws vary between different states. So we have to fall back to common sense and give an answer that shows good airmanship and a sound approach to flight safety...... ;)

RTQ (again)

Enough already. This is getting to hamsterwheel territory, and a couple of posters are bringing irrelevant personal agendas into the mix. Closed.