Let me ask you this AerroMatt....do you think safety pilot time is legit to log when guys aren't even touching the controls? There are thousands of guys with this kind of time in their logbooks at just about every operator in existance. Nobody seems to give a rat's azz about that. In fact every single pilot coming out of places like Ariben and ATP have safety pilot time in their logbooks. Obviously they got regional jobs.
Honestly, the pft/pfj issue really doesn't apply to this particular situation. The actual "job" is being performed by the paid employee/pilot, not the timebuilder.
Shoot, my FAR/AIM is at the office and I've been out flying all day, so I am unable to quote Chapter and Verse what can and cannot be logged. However, I'll attempt to do this from memory. Please excuse me if I miss some of the finer points.
As I recall, the FAR's allow flight under simulated IMC using a "hood" provided an appropriately rated pilot is aboard to act as a safety pilot. Now I do not recall any regulation regarding the logging of flight time for the safety pilot under this, but it would seem to me that the safety pilot could legally log the time the PIC was under the hood only. He could not log it as PIC, nor could he log the flight time where the PIC wasn't under the hood. As per FAR's, the PIC is the sole manipulator of the controls. This is the ONLY reference to "Safety Pilot" in the FAR's that I am aware of.
I do not know how these particular 141 schools that you mentioned operate. However, if the "Safety Pilot" is logging PIC time, then it is NOT legitimate. If the Safety Pilot is logging any time under other than "Hood" time for another pilot, it is NOT legitimate.
The regionals are experiencing tremendous growth, and they will hire anybody who appears to meet their qualifications. This has allowed a lot of people to get hired that really don't have the minimum experience necessary. Until a major disaster happens, it will continue. The air carriers who do this operate at their peril, and they place an undue burden on both their training department, and their Captains who have to babysit the neophytes under their care. When the general public gets word of it, they may demand major changes from the FAA through Congress.
My last two jobs were both at 135 operators. In the earlier one I was a training Captain, and at the latter I was Chief Pilot. At the earlier job, we simply wouldn't hire someone from a "Fast-Track" flight academy. The president wouldn't even consider someone from the bigger flying Universities due to the attitude those grads exuded, "I graduated from (add your favorite Academy here), I deserve this job, and you must hire me." But at both jobs, I found plenty of new hires whose flight skills were way below what I expected of someone with the minimun flight experience for 135 PIC or SIC. When I dug deeper, I usually found they had taken some kind of shortcut like these time building scams to get the times they claimed to have, or they had lied outright about their flight times. They usually didn't last long, because they couldn't perform to expectations.
Now back to the PFJ as you put it, maybe I should use a different analogy. Let's say you need an appendectomy. Your local hospital charges you for all the procedures. They also charge the Surgeon and the Nurses for the priviledge of operating on you! After all, they have to learn somewhere, right? But would you, the customer, want to be operated on knowing that the Surgeon and the Nurses are also paying to operate on you to gain experience? What would you think if you met a Surgeon before he operated on you in this situation if he told you, "Hi, I'm Dr Who, and I am so happy to be allowed to operate on you, I paid the hospital $5000.00 from my own pocket to do it! It's my first operation of this type, and I can assure you that I will do a great job."? How are you going to feel about this particular Doc working on you?
Maybe the oil companies that contract with this pipeline patrol are aware of their practices, and maybe not. Once again, nothing will happen so long as a disaster doesn't happen. But the principle still applies. The legality of the "timebuilding" is already pretty clear, and someday operations like multiengine.net will be either shut down or forced to change their ways.
Meantime, I continue to learn how people try to shortcut experience requirements. I shake my head, and I learn more about what to look for and ask of an applicant to my company.
