CFII currency

[cjh]

No pondering needed.

I can assure you that all of the posters here who feel you cannot log an approach you have not personally performed are not talking about the autopilot. It is a flight instrument just like anything else in the cockpit for which you are responsible. It may be engaged but YOU are responsible for monitoring its function and assuring it's operating correctly. An approach involving the autopilot is no different from an approach using a GPS, HSI or any other piece of equipment that improves the margin of getting down safely. It doesn't count against you for currency and it doesn't effect logging.

Hope that helps!

 

[cjh]

It may be engaged but YOU are responsible for monitoring its function and assuring it's operating correctly.
__________________________________________________

OK...that's the opinion I was hoping for. Now, ponder this:
If an instructor is providing IAP instruction in IFR conditions, isn't the CFII responsible for monitoring "the students" function and assuring correct operation?

Yes

If the approach is unsuccessful and the a/c makes a smoking hole in the ground, wouldn't the CFII be responsible?

Yes

If the CFII says "ok, localizer alive, start your intercept; glide slope alive...more flaps; one dot...lower the gear; etc etc etc, then isn't s/he performing the INTENT of maintaining currency? If you do not have to have your hands on the control wheel during an autopilot approach?????

No

Where is the difference?

One's a pilot who must use his skills in hands-on practice to maintain currency, and the other is a dumb machine. I'll let you figure out which is which.

 

[bobbysamd]

Ofishull FAA Website

It . . . .sounds like it is time that the FAA put together a website like the Lynch site and make the answers official, legal, and binding rather than leaving everyone to make up thier own opinions and decide which is right after the fact.

But the problem with that is the Administrative Law judges evaluate every situation strictly on a case-by-case basis. Unfortunately, and stupidly, precedent isn't binding.

I . . . try to keep my log entries as close as possible to my students. Rather than just write in instrument training I actually list which approaches were flown or commercial training I list which maneuvers, and as part of that I list every landing done on the flight. I specifically do a night flight with 3 full stop landings within every 90 days to show currency. I don't think it's right to "steal a landing" on a dual flight to keep myself current or to count a last moment grab of the yoke to save a bad landing as a landing for currency.

I did the same thing. Another benefit from that practice is your logbook becomes a record of student training. You cover yourself and you can replicate your role in a student's logbook if his/hers is ever lost.

 

[midlifeflyer]

OK...that's the opinion I was hoping for. Now, ponder this:
If an instructor is providing IAP instruction in IFR conditions, isn't the CFII responsible for monitoring "the students" function and assuring correct operation?[/i]

A bit different, but that is a very good point. If Lynch is correct in his interpretation, this could be part of the FAA policy reasoning.

Earlier, 172Driver asked

Do you really think you are as proficient teaching approaches as you would be if you flew them?

We know that legality doesn't necessarily equal proficiency. So saying "This interpretation is safer" doesn't mean it's the correct one. But sticking with the proficiency issue for a moment, let's turn the question around:

Do you really think you are as proficient flying the exact same approach 6 times in 6 months under the hood in severe clear, doing the full missed once during that period as you would be if you continually monitored and corrected students deviations in actual IMC with your own ticket on the line every time they made mistakes?

 

[TheAmazingRando]

I think that this goes back to the old saying "whats safe is not always legal, and whats legal is not always safe" Personally, I think that you can watch a person fly approaches, chandelles, whatever all day and not gain anything in the way of proficiency. Why do we have logbooks, then? If all we had to do was watch, what would the purpose be then to actually do any flying at all? Anyway just my $.20

That's right 20 cents!

 

[WMUSIGPI]

in that case maybe the rules should be changed so that instructors shouldn't be able to log any time unless they are actually operating the controls. No more using flight instruction as a time builder to the airlines.... at least this would weed out most of the bad instructors teaching just to build time and not give a d@mn about their students.
Course this would probably also create a great shortage of instructors and cause instructor fees to skyrocket.
Then maybe instructors would get paid what they are worth.
Though then how many people could afford to learn to fly?
Well, so much for instructor demand and pay raises.
Oh heck lets all just go back to horses for transportation.

OK now seriously, I agree that some hands on flying needs to be done every so often. Some of the worst pilots I saw when doing rental checkouts were airline pilots used to turing on the autopilot at all times above 200 feet. yet these are the most experienced pilots in the country... what gives? well I'm guessing it was a combination of lack of any real hands on flying in some time and forgetting how to fly a little single engine piston plane.... (they won't land at 120kts)
But they had the best checklist and flow skills of anyone.
had they flown completely hands on at least once a week and remembered how to fly a little plane they probably would have done much better but that's life

 

[avbug]

Again, it's not about monitoring. There can be no correlation between monitoring a student, and monitoring an autopilot. An autopilot during a coupled approach is part of the aircraft flight control sytem. Weather one physically moves a yoke or control column, or uses the trim system or control servos to do the same thing, is not relevant. When hand flying the approach, or performing a coupled approach, a pilot is still performing the approach.

A student is NOT part of the aircraft flight control system. A student is a person flying the approach. Monitoring a student is not the same as performing the approach. The issue is not one of monitoring something or someone else performing the approach. The issue is about actually performing the approach, and the person logging the approach must be the one that performed it.

If I hand fly an approach to minimums by reference to instruments, I may log the approach. If I fly a coupled approach to minimums by reference to instruments, I may log the approach. If I fly on board as PIC during an approach to minimums while the SIC performs the approach, I may not log the approach for recency of experience purposes, no matter how much monitoring I may have done. Good experience, to be sure...but it doesn't meet the recency of experience requirements.

Lynch does a good job and the site is good entertainment.

The FAA doesn't change "rules" in the middle of a trial. What case law are you referring to?

 

[midlifeflyer]

avbug said:
The FAA doesn't change "rules" in the middle of a trial. What case law are you referring to?

They don't really "change" them, but the FAA has been known to write them in the middle of trial. As I recall, John Yodice may have done an article on it for AOPA Pilot. I know that I've heard him speak on it at aviation legal seminars.

It's not FAA-specific. Standard US Administrative Law.

1. The interpretation that an agency gives to a regulation it wrote is entitled to deference by the courts.
2. An agency can give an interpretation of a regulation for the very first time during a trial.
3. This interpretation given during trial is due the same deference as one that was given long before trial.

So, in the CFII-logging-the-student's-approach scenario, it is entirely possible (if the issue came up during a certificate action) for the FAA to say "no" to the logging issue for the very first time and make it stick, no matter what John Lynch says.

 

[avbug]

Again, cite an example of administrative case law involving 14 CFR in which this applies.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Again, cite an example of administrative case law involving 14 CFR in which this applies.

Sure. There are lots, but you might remember this one because everyone was talking about it when it came down.

Pilot hears a clearance. Thinks it's meant for him. Reads it back. ATC doesn't correct him. Follows the clearance and is violated. FAA charges violation of 91.123 (failure to follow clearance). Pilot argues that he followed proper readback procedures. FAA says "tough."

NTSB agrees with the pilot. Not every error is a violation. People make honest mistakes. The FAA's interpretation doesn't promote safety. And the NTSB has other cases that interpret it the same way. And this was the first time that the FAA interpreted the regulations this way.

Goes up on appeal and the NTSB gets reversed. Everyone remembers the case because a lot of people feel the pilto got hosed. But on the Admin Law level, the case is one of many that satdn for the principles we've been talking about. Legally, the case is pretty technical (though not all the difficult to follow), but this quote (supported by a line of prior authority and parts of which are repeated numerous times throughout the opinion) probably says it as succinctly as anywhere (some emphasis added):

More important, even if the NTSB had followed an unvarying line contrary to the regulatory interpretation the FAA advances here, that would not be sufficient to uphold the Board's decision in this case. As we noted at the outset, the interpretation of air safety regulations is an area in which the Board owes deference to the FAA. For that reason, consistency with the FAA's position is more important than consistency with the Board's own. As both the NTSB and Merrell concede, the FAA is authorized to initiate new regulatory interpretations through adjudication. And because the Board is bound to follow such interpretations, it may at times be both necessary and proper for the Board to depart from its prior case law

The case is Garvey v. National Transp. Safety Bd., 190 F.3d 571 (DC Cir 1999). You can read it online at
www.ll.georgetown.edu/federal/judicial/dc/opinions/98opinions/98-1365a.html