PIC during checkout
 

I have a situation here with someone wbo wants to fly my airplane.

As part of my insurance company's conditions for pilots all are required to have a checkout by a CFI (does not have to be a CFI from the country of registration - he is not giving instruction in this instance).

The guy who is looking to get checked out is a retired BA captain, all the right licences (including to be flying the airplane - this is JUST being done to keep the insurers happy), gazillion flight hours etc.

Now here's the thing - during this check out who is PIC? Is it the pilot in the left hand seat being checked out or the pilot in the right hand seat, the CFI.

Please don't overthink this - the left hand seat pilot is fully legal to be flying solo - it is simply being done to keep the insurers happy.

I will reveal why this is important after I get some views.

It is very common for the left hand seat "student" to log PiC in such circumstances, but personally I think that this is unwise.

If the instructor needs to be there for the purposes of the flight, he's therefore PiC and the checkee is P/UT.

Of course, you can do the whole flight in 20 minutes if the checkee is as good as you believe him to be.

G

Ebbie;

The flight is a check ride, the CFI is P1. Your ex-BA Captain would understand this from LPC/OPC and line check days. He may be fully qualified to fly the aircraft, and vastly more experienced than the trainer, but the CFI is P1 and should be the guy who signs the tech log.

I do an LPC/OPC, IRR and line check on each type I fly for a living, the training captain is the P1, when I get a check ride with the local flying club their instructor is always P1

SND

P.1/S for the chap in the left seat.

No, it's not an exam. So PuT is right.
And instructor must be P1 because they are essential for the flight to be legal (it's not legal if not insured).

Without knowing what the insurance company believes constitutes a "check-out" for the purpose of flying the acrft all answers are speculation.

To me being "checked out" prior to flying an acrft for hire as example this could easily be done by any current pilot (not instructor)who knows the acrft and is happy with the conduct of the flight by the new pilot. WHY does every flight have to have an instructor (A CFI!!!) IF an instructor is required, are lowly FI's incapable of flying a "check flight"??? Utterly ridiculous.

The OP seems to be in Barbados, so I expect that the C in CFI stands for Certified, not Chief. A "lowly FI" if you like. :)

Hello one and all

Yes, using the US CFI "certified flight instructor" - it is a US registered airplane, just needs to be a CFI from any ICAO country.

The requirement is not specified - it is not a "flight review" is it simply to have it confirmed that the person being checked out can fly the airplane safely; a quick 30-minute flight.

Now the reason for asking - those who have followed my semi-amusing tales of fly out here will maybe recall I mentioned a CFI who managed to have an off field landing when the engine quite on base (yes I know!)
Following this the civil aviation authority here issued him a letter banning him from flying in Barbados airspace - that was two and a half years ago! He is a FAA CFI, Major in the US Civil Air Patrol, rated up the wazoo as they say - in BFR and with his medical etc. so can fly instruct anywhere else on the planet just not here so they say - just too risky to have him be PIC in Barbados airspace. If he is not PIC he can give people the OK here - hence the question - otherwise it is a case of flying out of Barbados airspace. That gets complicated due to the size of everyone involved and places with fuel - as it happens the airplane has about 38 USG in it right now so I'd need to fly it around for two and a half hours or more to burn off a chunk of it to be good for W&B and then the fuel to get back issue. Those, again, who have read my stuff will recall the when it went to the US for a respray the paint etc. added 80lbs + to the empty weight.

So maybe here's a question - when one rents in the UK and go for the flight before renting - is one PIC or is one "receiving instruction"? To stretch the point when I did my US check ride to get my license (a full on FAA not a piggy-back") I did not have a licence but I was PIC; so hence the confusion.

I scored out a check flight I had logged as Pu/t when the check pilot said he was not an instructor. I didn't put P1 as during the flight I hadn't believed I was P1, and had flown approaches configured as he had requested.

If Insurance is mandatory in Barbados then it would not be legal if the insurers had not agreed to insure this pilot.
A checkout implies that the person being checked is under some form of review which then poses the question, what if the reviewer is not happy with the performance of the person he is reviewing. If the reviewer were not PIC i.e responsible for the flight then they would not be able take control should it prove necessary.
By insisting that an instructor conduct such a flight, the insurer is reliant on that persons experience and integrity to do the job properly. If they are banned from operating in local airspace then should your aircraft be involved in an accident, it is highly unlikely that the insurers would pay you a penny.

Interesting how on here whenever one asks a question one is told one is asking the wrong question!

Thanks for the assistance.

My "rental checkouts" carried out under FAA jurisdiction have always, without exception, had me logging it as PIC. Most posters seem to be talking from a UK point of view which would not be relevant.

From my instructors background: a rental checkout is either a demonstration of proficiency ( type flown previously) or training to proficiency ( type not flown previously).
Or combination of both at the discretion of the instructor really.
In any case it depends on the certification held by the pilot undergoing the checkout that determines who is PIC.

Unrelated point of interest.
Being an “airline pilot with a bazillion hours” doesn’t mean they’re safe to fly a “little” airplane.
Those bazillion hours in a transport category airplane do not carry over well to a single system single engine aircraft with a fraction of the performance they are used to.
Flew with a retired airline pilot guy once who told me that he lost 3 former colleagues in a year that went back to flying little airplanes after retirement.

Is the FI insured? He's already been "checked out" by another FI?!

Seems to me that the person who is insured is the one who logs as PIC.

Here's my take on it.

In a relatively normal checkout - not the "one hour with the instructor for rating renewal", but one for insurance/club purposes - both the checker and the checkee are normally fully licensed and legal to act as PIC. Who is actually the PIC in such a scenario is a matter of discussion between the two of them. However, when an accident occurs the authorities and the insurance companies will most likely look at the most senior person on board. So it makes sense for that person (usually the instructor) to sign out the aircraft, and sign the logbook, as PIC.

This is not your normal checkout. The instructor is not allowed to act as PIC because of the ban by the authorities - which is a can of worms in its own right. And the checkee is not allowed to act as PIC because he's not yet insured, and flight without insurance is illegal. So based on the information given I'd say that there is no way that your flight could be made legally in the first place.

There's two ways you can solve this. The first, probably most long-winding of the two, would be to question the legality of the ban in the first place. I don't know of any provision in the laws of the jurisdiction where I fly (EASA) that allows the aviation authorities to "ban" a person from flying, when he or she is otherwise fully licensed, and without due process of the law. Maybe they could temporarily suspend the privileges pending the court case, but an outright, unchallengeable, indefinite ban without a court case? I don't think that's legally possible.

The other way would be to contact the insurance company, explain the dilemma and work together to find a way to make the flight legal and insured.

One possible way of making the flight legal and insured would be if YOU were to sit in the RHS, acting as PIC, with the checkee on the LHS handing the controls, and the instructor in the back to eventually sign off the checkee. (I know that the Dutch authorities have once given permission for this kind of solution when somebody needed to do a type-rating exam for a highly complex but unique aircraft, and there were no examiners anywhere to be found with that type rating. So a type-rated instructor was in the RHS, the checkee in the LHS and the non-typerated examiner was in the back.)

Why does it matter. Is the ex airline pilots ego so fragile that he can’t log a bit of PUT?

For some of us it's simply decades of professional experience.

If I'd always built what the client asked me to without first checking that they were asking the right questions I'd have been involved in a lot more failed projects. Not good for one's CV, that, so I always check to make sure that the right questions are being asked ... sometimes to discover that they aren't.

Nope, insurabce is not a requirement of the authorities - it is my requirement, someone decides fly is just not cutting it and decides to go swimming half way to Mustique I want to get my plsne paid for, the insurance says a check out - no specifics - just mske sure thd guy kn8ws what he is about.

The pilot to be checked out coukd get in it and legally fly with passengers with no issues - the purpose of the check out us to ensure my $12,000 annual premium insurance pays out if there is an incident.

So having established that it is nothing to do with insurance bring required to be legal - the question - who is P1 during a chdck out - to define the terms - the pilot being checked out has 20,000+ hours more ratings and licences that seems possible; the CFI (oh yes, I did like the diversion inyo what C of CFI means!)has a couple of thousand hours total - both are legal for solo - but the CFI is "banned" (for the pedants, this is in any event bogus) and does not want to breach the ban by bring PIC in the airspace - it will in cause issues, not least the scale of the compensation he'll be getting the longer the ban persists).

For those interested, seems a second CFI got banned here this month - the offence failing to tell a person converting his Canadian licence to get a stamp from the Civil Aviation Department!!

Very much begins to sound like the wrong questions are being asked.

Right questions might be along the lines of:

"Who can I get to do this that isn't banned?"

Or

"How do I reorganise my flying such that I don't have to live in an environment where people go around banning people?"

Ebbie 2003


Annual insurance premium ? $12K. What are you flying - a 747 ?