Logging Hours
 

Hi folks, i was speaking to a chap who is training for his PPl, he told me his instructor told him that if your qualified and sharing a flight with another pilot say, even if your sat in the right hand seat you can split the time and log it. I always thought it was left seat only PIC, or is it just a case of simply flying from the right hand seat and thats acceptable?

It is what you agree on. There's no rule that says you can't log time from the right seat. But you can't both log that time simultaneously, unless it's a 2 crew ship.

That's correct, with the proviso that the seat is a pilot station.

It could be front or rear on a tandem cockpit or the RH seat if it has access to all the flight controls and required instruments.

It's best to annotate your log book columns with the reason if the time claimed is less than the flight duration.

Thanks for the replies lads.

And subject to any rules relating to a rented aircraft imposed by the owner, eg a club rule saying "P1 must sit in left hand seat".

Or one was an instructor logging Captain, and the other their student logging P/UT.

Which may be what the OP's friend was actually told, as it would be true throughout the dual part of his training.

P

Are you sure? See below...

Aeroplanes - ICAO Annex 6, Part II
3.2 The pilot-in-command shall be responsible for the safety of all crew members, passengers and cargo on board when doors are closed. The pilot-in-command shall be responsible for the operation and safety of the aeroplane from the moment the aeroplane is ready to move for the purpose of taking off until the moment it finally comes to rest at the end of the flight and the engine(s) used as primary propulsion units are shut down.

If its single crew then how can the above apply?

"responsible for" is not the same as "does everything".

P

Because at any one time there is one pilot in command; the other pilot being a passenger/supernumery when not on his shift. This happens regularly on long haul flights, but is equally permissible on any flight.

The sum of PIC times booked by both pilots should equal the flight block time chock-to-chock.

Sorry, but try these definitions form our friends at EASA.

‘Pilot-in-command’ means the pilot designated as being in command and charged
with the safe conduct of the flight. For the purpose of commercial air transport
operations, the ‘pilot-in-command’ shall be termed the ‘commander’

and...

"In accordance with 8.e of Annex IV to Regulation (EC) No 216/2008, one pilot amongst the
flight crew, qualified as pilot-in-command in accordance with Part-FCL, shall be designated
by the operator as pilot-in-command, or, for commercial air transport operations, as
commander."

Note the words "ONE pilot amongst the flight crew"....so only ONE P1. It therefore follows that only one person can log a flight as P1.

The wording "or, for commercial operations as commander", implies they are also referring to private flying.

Mark 1,I see you are in the USA where the rules about logging flights may be different.

To quash the semantics and satisfy the laws in any country (?), simply rent the aircraft for exactly half the time each. Land, shut down, start up, fly again. Each has takeoff, landing startup, shutdown practices etc in equal measure.

Not rocket science.

CG

It seems to be the discussion is going off on a tangent which was not intended by the OP. To get back on track, no, there is no rule (except apparently in Germany) that says the PIC has to be in the LHS.

Assuming you can perform all the required duties, and there is no specific prohibition in the POH, you can be PIC in the RHS as well. Although the first time you fly from the RHS I would suggest you take an instructor along. Both the motor skills (swapped hand functions) and the sight picture is different, so you may need to re-learn to land the plane.

And yes, the PIC role can swap in-flight if that is necessary for some reason. It does mess up the balance between take-offs and landings in your logbook though.

The trick with EU legislation is to read all parts of the Regulation - in this case, the requirement is "in accordance with 8.e. of Annex IV" and paragraph 8 is titled "Additional requirements for operation for commercial purposes and operation of complex motor-powered aircraft" Thus paragraph 8.e. and, therefore, the requirement for the operator to designate the pilot-in-command, does not apply to non-commercial operations in other than complex motor-powered aircraft.

Can I ask for views on this (point 3 in particular):


Point 3 in particular suggests that when two pilots are flying in the same aircraft they can both log all of the hours. Only one of them can log as PIC, however. Does this mean that building total hours just became half the price if you share the controls with a buddy, or am I missing something with these new EASA regulations? :)

As per Adam's comment above, you can only be co-pilot in a two-crew aircraft.
Not your typical SEP, in other words.

Yes, you are missing something. There is no such thing as copilot on an aircraft that is certificated as single pilot. That regulation refers to multi-crew aircraft.

On a single pilot aircraft (except when flying with an instructor or examiner) at any point in time one person only is PIC and anyone else is a passenger and nothing more. There is nothing to prevent roles being swapped at some point or for the PIC to permit the passenger to handle the controls, whilst the PIC still retains overall responsibility for the aircraft.

What cannot happen, is for two or more people to be logging time simultaneously. On a single pilot aircraft you cannot have more than one person claiming and logging any unit of time.

You're missing the fact that there can be no co-pilot on a plane certified only for single-pilot operations. :ok: With the exception of a student flying with an instructor, on such a plane you're either the PIC or a passenger. On a multi-crew plane the PIC will indeed log all of the flight hours as PIC, the SIC will also log all of the flight hours, but only as SIC. They don't have to split them in half or keep track of who has actually acted as Pilot Flying and for how long, as they are both operating simultaneously albeit with different responsibilities, regardless of who is handling the primary controls at any given time.

Ciao,

Dg800

As I'm sure has been said else where, you can't be a co-pilot in a single crewed aircraft. PICUS is when you have a TRI sitting beside you, so you are acting as PIC but responsibility is through the instructor.
Expensive to hour build in a multi-crew aircraft...

Nope, you can (and indeed must) operate certain single-pilot aircraft in multi-crew environment, if you want to fly commercially under IFR.

The CAA may require a co-pilot for commercial IFR flights with DA42 (single-pilot aircraft) and the person acting as co-pilot can then log co-pilot time which counts towards ATPL, since it only requires 500h in multi-pilot operation, not with multi-pilot aircraft. The skill test for it however has to be done on a multi-pilot aircraft.

While I agree that the legislation doesn't actually punctuate this, transfer of PIC in-flight isn't that problematic, you just have to note the time - and of course, you can only count times and landings when you were PIC, not the entire flight. There are some issues though - Germany (see AIP), insurance (check if it coveres right-seat PIC which is not an FI or the flight isn't part of flight instruction), common sense (can you takeoff, land and do all emergency from the right seat as good as from the left one?). I've done quite a number of flight from the right seat, but it wasn't done ad-hoc without previous consideration.

That being said, the reasons for PIC change-over in-flight could be: landing is expected at night and the left-seat pilot isn't night qualified/rated or the weather is becoming worse and the left-seat pilot isn't instrument rated - although flying IFR from right-seat in aircraft with steam gauges is a really bad idea unless trained/qualified.

It is if you just want to go into the mountains, once, & come back within the time available.