"safety pilot time"?!?!

[CaptO'Brien]

Hi i am wondering if there is anybody on this board who has done a multi block time where apparently two pilots can log PIC and gone onto a major carrier such as Cathay pacific or Emirates...I am looking into doing this time because it works out to be cheaper for what im doing just to buy a block time of multi; and of course it gives me the multi time which seems to be so important when going to the regionals.

I know this can get you into the regionals but i am thinking long term i may want to go to a foreign carrier and i dont want a measly 25 hours that i logged as apparently legal "safety pilot" time to screw me over. I know most other foreign countries will not let you log time like this, but i guess if its done wiht a FAA license in a "N" registered AC then its legal and they should accept it?

I am truly conflicted at this point if i should do this or not...the school i am looking at attending for this time bulding is "Ari Ben" and it works out well for me to do it, however i dont want to be affected negatively in the future by something small in my past. Thanks in advance for your comments!

Capt O'B

 

[A Squared]

I know this can get you into the regionals but i am thinking long term i may want to go to a foreign carrier and i dont want a measly 25 hours that i logged as apparently legal "safety pilot" time to screw me over. I know most other foreign countries will not let you log time like this, but i guess if its done wiht a FAA license in a "N" registered AC then its legal and they should accept it?

It's not just Foreign carriers, many US carriers won't accept this sort of bogus time.

 

[avbug]

If you undertake to spend a lot of money to "build time" and inflate your logbook, certainly this doesn't paint you in a good light, and doesn't really build your character as a pilot, either. It's been said oh-so-many times, but build experience, not hours.

Hours you can write in your logbook, because that's all they're worth. Sit down with me and I don't care how many hours you claim, as I'll know all I need to know about your experience by talking with you for a short time. Getting into the airplane only confirms what I've already learned about you. A good interviewer does the same thing, and no matter what your paperwork says to inflate your image, you're never more than the sum of your experiences.

With that in mind, if you're going to split time with someone, make it productive. From a paperwork (logbook) point of view, how this time is perceived is entirely up to you, as you're the one describing what occured. If you write "Served as safety pilot to joe blow...sat in the seat and looked at seagulls while joe got all the experience," then you probably deserve to get turned down by a carrier.

Conversely, if you make a note in the remarks that you flew from A to B and had a hamburger at B while executing an instrument approach and chugging down a shake, nobody cares. It's a ho-hum logbook entry.

If you fly for two hours, and half of it is under the hood, half as safety pilot, and you log it all...your log shows two hours of PIC experience and your remarks record six appraoches flown with joe blow as safety pilot. You don't need a detailed description that you got out, changed seats, and then played safety pilot yourself. You only need to record the name of the safety pilot for the portion you flew, and you needn't explain any more than that. One viewing that log entry doesn't know if you flew part or all of the flight,and probably won't care, or won't care to ask.

That said, if you're going to split time and split flying to safe on the costs, then make it valueable time...make it experience. Fly approaches, practice approaches to Vmc, fly holds. Do partial panel work. Do holds partial panel, and approaches partial panel, and NDB approaches...make yourself work. This is experience, vs. time. Logging time is logging time. It's ink sluicing past the ball crimped in the end of an ink cartridge in a cheap pen between your first two fingers and thumb. That's all. But experience dictates the material with which you mold yourself as a pilot. It forms the basis for your decision making, the way your view the atmosphere, the way you handle an emergency, the way you handle yourself.

Can you benifit from playing the hood-and-safety-pilot game? Most absolutely, but how you benifit, and how you package it, is very much up to you. If you're just doing it to log it, and you package it that way, it will be to your detriment. If you do it with every intent of making yourself a better pilot and sell it that way, more power to you, because you're doing it right.

What's it to be? Hours or experience?

 

[Amish RakeFight]

Being a safety pilot has its merits. Remember, under this arrangement you are considered the acting PIC. As avbug stated, the experience is what you make it.

 

[PDH]

An employee/examiner of a rather large flight school (that everybody knows about) informed us that up to 3 people could log PIC. You would need one to be a CFI, one to be the "sole manipulator of the controls", and the "pilot in command" could be asleep in the back seat. He taught it as a way to build multi time. I do believe you would be cheating yourself if you did that.

 

[avbug]

What regulatory requirement under that scenario would require one of the two in the "front seat" to be a flight instructor?

 

[Amish RakeFight]

An employee/examiner of a rather large flight school (that everybody knows about) informed us that up to 3 people could log PIC. You would need one to be a CFI, one to be the "sole manipulator of the controls", and the "pilot in command" could be asleep in the back seat. He taught it as a way to build multi time. I do believe you would be cheating yourself if you did that.

I think you have it a little out of order. I've heard the same of said school and the MEI sits in the back. The two non-instructors log the ME time up front under the safety pilot 50/50 plan.

 

[CaptO'Brien]

If i do this i do plan on making the most of it to practice approaches and actually work while under the hood....

The whole reason i am considering this is because i am converting my licenses from Canadian to FAA and i need to do 29 dual or something to convert...so it works out well for me to just buy the 50 hour block of multi for a little more and end up with all my conversions done in a multi engine plane which will make my total multi time upwards of 95 hours (25 saftey pilot and 70 actually me flying by myself or dual) instead of paying a bunch of money to sit in a 172 and convert and then waste money on renting a twin all to myself.

BTW i am an American citizen i am converting to come back home since my parents moved up to Canada where i did all my training and licenses.

 

[Amish RakeFight]

Being a safety pilot has its merits. Remember, under this arrangement you are considered the acting PIC. As avbug stated, the experience is what you make it.

I wanted to expand on what I meant in this comment. As the safety pilot under this arrangement you are the acting PIC of the flight and carry with it the responsibility if anything goes wrong or are even ramp checked. There's a lot of responsibility in being the PIC aside from the typical duties of a safety pilot. It would be wise to ensure that the flying pilot who's logging PIC as the sole manipulator understands that the PIC safety pilot will normally be the final authority as to the operation of that particular flight. In other words, you should expect to be the one who makes the final decisions on how that flight is operated. If the flying pilot busts a reg. somehow, you may be the one who's responsible, so don't take the role of safety pilot lightly. Remember, a safety pilot can equally log this time as an SIC if they chose to do so. Obviously, most will take the PIC role because of the more recognized time.

 

[AC560]

I never understand why people go through such complicated gyrations to log fake time in their log books. If you want to build time this way, get a pen and start cracking why worry about things like safety pilot or instructing from the back seat.