I can be nearly two years between flying a SEP and am still legal to go fly it solo.

And here comes the "authority principle", which is worth less than used toilet paper when confronted with legal issues. I wonder, when will the "ad hominems" start? :mad:

You're all making stuff up to suit your ideas. The law does not distinguish between "flying straight and level" or any other phase of flight. It also does not distinguish between "flying solo" or "flying next to bloody Charles Lindbergh".
The law clearly states that you cannot act as pilot of an aircraft without holding the appropriate license. Manipulating the flight controls is acting as pilot, it doesn't matter whether you're just "flying straight and level" or "competing at the world's aerobatic championship", whomever is flying the plane is the pilot, period.

I'm really outta hear.

P.S. The worst bull!!!! I ever heard often came from "very experience pilots", BTW. :E

Congratulations, you meet the legal requirements for currency! Here is your prize. :mad:
And your point is? None? OK, have a nice day.

Article 50 says "Pilot", but the CAA explanatory letter states "this term is defined in article 255(1)".

Article 255(1) does not have a definition of "Pilot" - only "Pilot in Command":
'Pilot in command' means a person who for the time being is in charge of the piloting of an aircraft without being under the direction of any other pilot in the aircraft;

Even though Article 50 paragraph 1 states "Pilot", Article 50A paragraph 1 states "a person must not act as a member of the flight crew of
an aircraft to which this paragraph applies without holding an appropriate licence granted or rendered valid under this Order."
Para 50 talks about EASA aircraft, and 50A is non-EASA aircraft, but why does one talk about pilot and the other flight crew. Do the CAA think that only members of the flight crew can be classed as pilots - and not passengers?

Definition of Flight Crew in ANO:
'Flight crew' in relation to an aircraft means those members of the crew of the aircraft who respectively undertake to act as pilot, flight navigator, flight engineer and flight radiotelephony operator of the aircraft;

So the flight crew are involved in all those aspects of flying, and not just the controls, meaning that passengers are not classed as flight crew, and so can legally take the controls.

No, but it does distinguish whether the PIC has managed the safety of the flight appropriately or not.

Your posts are making me smile on what is otherwise a very dreary Wednesday afternoon. Please don't leave ;)

MadJock wrote:Hi Jock, save us all the searching, any idea which safety sense that is in?

I have NEVER allowed a non pilot to handle the controls, it's taken two years to teach my wife to work the transponder and GNS450.

I would like to allow certain pax, who have some experience, to handle the controls under benign circumstances but there's no point in that unless they can tell people they did it.... which will get me strung up...or will it?

Absolutely hilarious! You need to look up the meaning of the word "respectively". I'll give you a hint: it definitely does not mean "all of the above".

I would never, ever retain any of you as attorney. I might just plead guilty and probably get a lesser sentence, whilst avoiding making a fool of myself in a court of law in the process. :ok:

That's enough entertainment for today. You all have a nice day.

Dg800, you may want to tone down your insults, as it's doing nothing for your credibility.

I had missed the word respectively. There is a nice way to tell me, but you ignored that:=

While you are talking about definitions you may like to look up the definition of pilot (seeing as the CAA don't like to provide one in the ANO):
a person duly qualified to operate an airplane (Pilot | Define Pilot at Dictionary.com

I would definitely not say that a passenger is a pilot based on that definition.

This thread is almost identical to the one about the 90 day passenger rule.

Can a passenger legally, with the permission of the PIC:
a) handle the controls
b) carry out take-offs and landings
and not be PIC nor "acting as pilot".

Different situations, of course, and different kinds of passenger, but I think it comes back to that same question.

Article 50 = EASA, so wording is copy from Part-FCL
Article 50A = Non-EASA so National rules

I think EASA cocked-up by stating something "act as pilot" and then
not defining it - therefore definition is open to interpretation.

"Licensed to operate an aircraft" is one definition, but here are
another two (from internet dictionaries):

Quote:

---

A person who operates the flying controls of an aircraft

---

Giving passengers control
 

I often leave the girlfriend in control whilst i nip back to use the lav and top my vodka martini up. She flies beautifully holding the controls very tightly, usually screaming with her eyes shut.....

Hi all,

We have an Italian who admits he may not have full Level 6.

Surely, the difference is "in control" and "at the controls".

And, if you speak to an examiner - or have ever had a flying test - you should have the nuances of who is actually "in control" and "at the controls" explained to you.

I appreciate the phrase: "You have control" may now cause some confusion. Does it mean "You are now the handler of the controls", or does it mean "You are now Captain"?

And just how much control of the controls do you actually have if the instructor can then insist at any time: I have control?

Know what: we all manage pretty well to understand without going in to semantics. We are pilots, not lawyers or English professors.

Once a couple thousand feet in the air, I commonly give passengers the controls. In busy airspace, it frees me up for navigation and ATC.

Doing intros in gliders, same deal.

And yes, I monitor very carefully.

Some selection is necessary. My nephew with cerebral palsy cannot control his movements and simply cannot be in any seat with access to the controls.

That said, our club commonly operates Freedom Flights for the disabled. They have to be lowered in with a hoist, but a number can fly the glider through aggressive maneuvers. That said, it's the senior instructors who fly them.

There is the type who takes a firm grip who needs to be admonished that a light touch is the way to go.

In gliders, you really do need a careful preflight briefing about keeping hands, legs and feet well clear during takeoff and landing when full control movement is often needed.

The regulatory environment varies with jurisdiction and with time; so what was once common practice may become proscribed.

Dg800,

You have a very different interpretation of the rules than that put forward by the more Northern and Western based people. It would be useful to understand a bit of your background and reasons for your assertion. For instance you may be a Milan based aviation lawyer familiar with the detail of historic national and EASA law and judgements, on the other hand you may be a newspaper reporter trolling for a story.

I have no idea what laws might exsist in Italy on the subject, and given some recent criminal convictions or ATC, Pilots, and Geologists - I can imagine the law is quite different to the rest of Europe.

Certainly in the US and UK (the two areas I am quite familiar with) it is routine for officially sanctioned flights to let the passenger have a go (now many of these will be with a civilian instructor, but some are with just a CPL or military pilot or in certain cases a PPL).

Most 'official' events have some aspect of commerciality (like a trial flight or an Air Experience flight) and hence of some regulation that will typically require a CPL.

In the UK and the US, the legal logic is very clear.
1 - An aircraft has a certain specified required crew complement
2 - All required crew members must be appropriately licenced rated and current
3 - There is an individual who is the pilot in command who is responsible for the legal compliance and safety of the flight. In the normal course of events this role can be transferred amongst the qualified individuals by mutual agreement (and sometimes by legal precedent - such as the case of an ATPL allowing a PPL owner to land at the wrong (restricted in the actual case) airport)
4 - everyone on board who is not required crew (other than the legal transfer referenced above) is a passenger regardless of the ratings/licences held

None of the above says if passengers are or are not allowed to operate any aspect of the aircraft. Even in Italy I would expect the passenger to be allowed to operate the overhead lights, doors, air vents etc. Within the Anglo Saxon tradition, something must be explicitly prohibited for it to not be allowed. My understanding of some other legal traditions is closer to only specifically defined acts are legal all others are prohibited.

Thus we end with the position in the UK and US that the PIC is overall accountable for the safe flight, all required crew members must be licensed, but no restriction on who can operate which bit of the aircraft. So you are right, a Pilot could jump into the right seat of a single control aircraft and let a total novice fly the aircraft from the left seat. The novice would not be breaking the law (he is not acting as a required crew member without a licence, the required crew is in the aircraft and in command). Of course the pilot is guilty of reckless endangerment as he has chosen to place himself in a location where he is unable to exercise his PIC responsibilities to ensure the safe and legal (in terms of navigation, compliance with clearances etc) execution of the flight.

Been looking for it Airpolice. They revised the care of pax one in 2011 they may have removed it then. I am pretty sure it was that one.

List of Safety Sense Leaflets | Publications | About the CAA

Been away from that side of things since I stopped full time instructing.

I had ferretted it out when putting together the flying companion course

Flying Companions Course

You won't be strung up far from it. You should see all the airline pilots boasting about how good a landing there 10 year old kid has just done in the tail dragger at some of the festivals. And to be fair a number of them the landing looked better than there dad/mum doing it.

There used to be a bit in the AOPA course book for the companion course which told them to practise in the cruise but only practise T/O and landings with a instructor.

Excellent post mm flynn, you saved me a lot of typing....

Too polite to be a lawyer, surely?

Now you're making stuff up about me too. My English is probably way better than yours, BTW. By the way, congratulations on being the first to bring out the usual, trite ad hominem.
This forum is a ******* waste of time, I'm out of here for good.
You clowns enjoy yourself in your little insular world.

;)

Incidently, that's the fourth time you've said you're leaving. Your lack of commitment is really quite disappointing :rolleyes:

Perhaps one of these days dg800 will dramatically storm out of this forum and actually not come back, as he keeps promising.

Dg800 wrote:

And

Sounds like an American to me. Not that there's anything wrong with Americans. Apart from their ritual slaughter of their mother tongue.

ISTR that in Canada it's forbidden to allow passengers to touch the controls?

I have only let a few people take control, but most of them have been terribly ginger and I got the impression that they enjoyed looking out of the window. I'm not sure whether it's my teaching style or choice of passenger that's at fault.

Oh dear, then I'm in big trouble! :E

I used to do it all the time in my gliding club.

Back here in dear old Blighty there are thousands of pilots flying around as P1 with no licence whatsoever.

The relevant Canadian regulations reads:

401.03(1) Subject to subsection (2), no person shall act as a flight crew member or exercise the privileges of a flight crew permit, licence or rating unless
(amended 2010/02/02; previous version) (a) the person holds the appropriate permit, licence or rating;

The "privilege" would be primarily to act as the pilot in command. A Pilot in Command is responsible for the flight as a whole. A "flight Crew Member" would be a person who is entitled to exercise the privilege, and is required for the flight in terms of minimum required crew for that aircraft.

Therefore, for most of our GA aircraft, there can only be one flight crew member, unless it is a training flight, and that one flight crew member would have to be the PIC, so would have to have the appropriate license.

That said, I don't see anywhere in there where there is a prohibition of a non flight crew member handling the controls. Elsewhere it says that you have to be an instructor to provide training, and nothing says "go ahead and let the passenger fly for fun", but it is not prohibited either.

If a PIC is not satisfied that they can safely conduct the flight with a non pilot handling the controls, that is entirely up to them, and that is to be respected. However, in the absence of a prohibition, and if the PIC is comfortable letting another person to fly, I cannot see how it breaks a [Canadian] regulation.

Transport Canada had at me once, when an inspector became aware that on a weekly basis I rode around right seat, while the owner, who had lost his medical for a year, flew his 182RG around. TC tried to convince me that my doing so contravened regulation - but I did not see how. I was the PIC, the aircraft did not state which seat I was to occupy, so I acted at all times to assure that the flight was conducted safely - I just did not fly it myself.

There was chatter about the risks of pilot incapacitation, or loss of consciousness, and that I had to be an instructor to allow him to fly. Why, I asked, do instructors have incapacitation training? Not usually!. I could be left seat, and my non flying passenger become incapacitated, with every bit the same risks to the safety of the flight as though they'd been flying on the left when it happened. There seemed no retort to that logic.

Though TC was not going to condone my letting him fly, they seemed to decline making an issue out of it either....

If you are truly comfortable, let another person share the joy we do! I try to get every passenger to fly a bit if they will....

Do not know much about Italy but I bet you my half eaten sandwich that there are hundreds of unlicenced pax at the controls over France every single week-end... My Dad let me fly his Jodel for the first time when I was five years old and every time I was in the bird with him after that... It is current practice in all french clubs or owners over the Alps... No big deal and what a good way to transmit a passion! If you had to pay or register as a Student Pilot before having a go, there would not be many candidates to the licence. Safe flying all. Al.

They must be bluddy safe, then, as they don't appear much in the monthly AAIB reports.

Actually, some of them do.

Have a read at the reports and you may be disturbed at the number of instances where the paperwork is not in order. Even the RAF are not immune from this.

Paperwork accidentally out of date isn't 'no licence whatsoever' even if legally it invalidates that licence. Yes, I knew about the scotman who killed himself in his first unlicenced and untrained flexwing flight and the loons above; that's why I wrote "don't appear much" instead of "never appear at all" in the reports.

Seems to me most of the argument (particularly from Dg800) hinges around the definition of pilot. You'd hope that would be clearly defined, but that seems too much to ask; I think most pilots would agree there's a lot more to being pilot (whether in command or not) than simply poking the controls - or to put it another way, is someone on a trial flight a pilot? I'd suggest not.

Legalese aside, I've never had an issue with letting folks have a go; in my experience they're more worried they might do something daft than I am - provided they're not given control in an inappropriate situation, there's little they can really do to hurt the flight.

That said, I'd be more cautious with tandem seating, especially if the pax was behind - I remember an early gliding instructor explaining to me that he sat in the back because if I did something stupid he could smack me around the head until I let go(!)

UK perspective, and I suspect almost everywhere else too.

I suspect that the absence of specific legislation regarding pax handling the controls of private aircraft is due to the total non-issue of them doing so, to the extent that the law has no interest in it. Far beyond a non-issue in fact, surely this is so well established over the best part of a century that it is normal aviation practice?

It is unnecessary for the regs re commercial aircraft to address this as company Ops manuals deal with it.

Why anyone gets hot under the collar about this is beyond me, as is the attitude of a PPL who refuses to let pax have a go. How sad that people feel so over-regulated that they manage to imagine "rules" where none exist. Didn't they study Aviation Law? As it is something that everyone knows almost all piots do it would feature large if it were illegal, wouldn't it? And wouldn't there be regs preventing pax sitting in front of controls? Or requirements to remove them (if removable) if the seat occupant didn't have a licence? Use your noddles people. This is just daft! D'uh oh!

So what does the book have to say about this, nothing. Nothing whatsoever, so how does anyone dream this nonsense up?

Further on understanding of the the Aviation Law aspect, there has been discussion above on the definition of "flight crew" and whether hands on the controls makes one so. Common sense says not, but that's no longer something to be relied upon these days. However your knowledge of Aviation Law (once again) should tell you...How many pilots is the aircraft certified for? In the PPL case just one. In a normal private flight can it have more? No, just one. No one else can log hours but the pilot in command. If handling the controls made you part of the flight crew you'd be able to log the hours, wouldn't you? But you know perfectly well you can't. So what happens if a second PPL (this is not an instructional flight) is in the second seat. What happens if he doesn't handle the controls and just sits there. Is he part of the flight crew? Of course not. That's clearly daft.
So if he now does handle the controls is he suddenly part of the flight crew? If so when does he log his time as whatever category of whatever this imaginary category of flight crew is? From take off? Handling time only? Of course not. How can he be if it is a single pilot operation? And wouldn't the regs - which are pretty comprehensive - deal with this glaring anomaly if it fact it actually existed. Of course it would. The fact they are silent on the matter proves that it is in fact pure imagination, it does not exist.

Forget about it people, get on with your flying and when appropriate let your eager pax have a go. When to do so is your decision as the sole pilot in command of a single pilot flight.

I would go along with that.

The PIC is responsible for the safety of the flight, and (assuming a successful outcome), he is the sole judge of that.
Clearly there are some aircraft where most would feel it was safe, eg a PA28 S&L at 3000ft with CAS and wx OK.
Clearly there are other aircraft where it would not be safe, eg small helicopters.

From the R22 POH:

CAUTION
For helicopters with removable controls,
remove left seat controls if person in
that seat is not a rated helicopter pilot.

But even here it is a caution, and it certainly does not read as though they are describing a legal issue.

One 2-seat glider at our club is owned by a syndicate with one member who lost his medical. So I get the occasional PIC flight when his partners are unavailable.

In his glider he finds and works the thermals better than I can -- and he does the landings.

The risk of his incapacitation and messing up on the controls in a way I could not remedy is the about the same as with anybody who shows up as an intro or trial flight passenger.

That's what the parachute is for:}

It is mind boggling the number of times PPLs seem to invent, make up or mis-interpret rules in a more restrictive fashion than necessary. Why are we a nation of devoted rule followers? For what it's worth I offer the controls to pax on climb out, provided I have deemed them not likely to panic, & if they wish to do so I let them fly the thing as long as they like while I do the RT & nav, including most of the way round the circuit to base leg at least. I do not however, gawp out the side with my finger up my ass while they are doing this. They are briefed to let go of everything if I say "I have control" or "gimme it!". I don't see the point in making pax think that poleing an a/c around the sky is rocket science performed by God-like Supermen. I have not yet allowed a non pilot land the thing though I did once let a perfectly qualified PPL nosewheel pilot land it,
(tailwheel), with no problems other than telling him to keep the stick all the way back after touchdown. I am not an instructor so no doubt I will now be considered an arsehole for being stupid. But & a big but, who is qualified to judge my judgement?

Quite right, Crash one. I do the same, except, since a bad experience many years ago letting a nosewheel pilot do the landing in an L4 Cub. He was a GA instructor of very many years (on spamcans), an ATPL with an airline day job, and very current. But he (me really for letting him do it) almost destroyed that Cub and possibly us as well. I caught it and recovered it in nanoseconds at what I thought was too late... but we and that lovely aeroplane survived. I don't know how. It's the closest I've ever come to aviation disaster. I might spill the full story on here some time; we'll see.

But it's the last time I'll ever do that!

Absolutely, I try and demystify it at all opportunities. I've already had one pax go on to start his PPL after showing him that it's not rocket science.

Another life ruined, excellent :E

Nice to know I'm not quite unique, I don't think I'll do that again either as it did take a bit of footwork on my part to regain "control" during the roll out. His comment was " Everything went as smooth a silk till touchdown, then all hell broke loose!"