Definition of Passenger and Currency

[threegreen123]

What constitutes a "passenger" for currency requirements? If a pilot doesn't have 3 landings at night in the last 90 days, whom if anyone can go with him on a night flight? For example, is a flight student a "passenger" on a night flight lesson if his CFI doesn't have 3 night landings in the last 90 days? What about a flight lesson with one student flying and one in the back observing? The question here is that, and this is for CFI's usually, does a flight student constitute a need to be current before a flight? For IFR currency its clear, as you simply cannot be PIC without the currency. But for landings, the passenger word is thrown in. Just wondering if there is a technicallity there.

 

[avbug]

Three green,

No technicality exists. You cannot act as PIC in either case without meeting the recency of experience requirements spelled out in 14 CFR 61.57.

In order to meet the landing experience requirements, you may be sole manipulator of the controls and perform the landings while not current, so long as only those necessary for the conduct of the flight are aboard. In other words, if you're in an airplane certificated for one crew member, you can't act as pilot in command while meeting the landing requirements.

If someone else is aboard who is capable of acting as pilot in command and is willing to do so, you can still perform the landings. Passengers may be aboard, or other persons may be aboard, so long as you aren't the final authority or responsibility on the flight...until you've met your landings requirement in accordance with 61.57(a)(1).

If you're an instructor who isn't current with respect to landings, then you need to get current before you fly with a student, if you'll be acting as pilot in command. If you're going to act as PIC, the student is a passenger. He or she may be logging instruction received, but you are PIC, and you cannot act as PIC without recency of experienice.

If the student is qualified to act as PIC and is the acting PIC, you don't need any currency at all to be instructing in the airplane, because you're a passenger. You need no medical certificate, no flight review, no recency of instrument experience, no night landings, no conventional gear landings, and you can even have bad breath (though 9 out of ten dentists queried don't recommend it for their patients who are instructors and have breath).

Your question is weather or not the student constitutes a passenger. The answer, if you are acting as PIC, is yes. The student is not necessary for the conduct of the flight.

I hear what you're thinking. You're thinking that the flight wouldn't be taking place without the student...it's an instructional flight after all. Therefore, the student is necessary for the conduct of the flight. Not so, grasshopper.

The purpose of the flight, because you lack currency, is to get you current. Then it becomes an instructional flight.

But you want to show the student your landings. That's fine, after your current. Because, after all, you must be current to fly with a passenger, and a student if not a required crewmember by certification or the regulation under which the flight is conducted (eg, 14 CFR 91.109(b), Part 121, Part 135, etc), then the student is a passenger.

Another commonly asked question is weather an instructor can log the student's landings, especially if the instructor is acting as pilot in command. The answer is that you can log anything you like, but the landings won't count for the purposes of currency, and do not meet the requirements of 61.57(a) or (b).

In order to log landings to meet recency of experience requirements, you must be sole manipulator of the controls. You are not the sole manipulator of the controls for a landing performed by the student. Therefore, you may log for recency of experience only those landings that you make. (assisting doesn't count).

The same is true for night landings. If you're not current, you're not current. If you intend to act as PIC, then you need to get current before you take the student along. If you're not current and something happens before you make it home to log your landings (or you're dumb enough to carry the logbook with you...), then you're got a lot to explain, and you're a likely candidate for both certificate suspension and civil action.

A student in the back seat is clearly a passenger. Weather or not the student is watching what's going on isn't relevant to your skill and ability based on recent experience, and that student isn't a required crewmember. He or she is a passenger, and may not be carried aboard while you act as PIC for the purposes of meeting recency of experience requirements.

All of this only applies if you're out of currency. If you're in currency and simply wish to perform additional landings during the flight, the students may be aboard. For example, it's been 89 days since your last three landings...those landings were performed after sunset 89 days ago. Tonight you are current, and performing night instruction. You can load students in the front seat, back seat, and tie them on the hardpoints on the wings, and you're still good to go while you perform the night landings (tie them on the wings well if you're doing night carrier quals...they tend to come off).

If your flying student (not the ones in the back seat or on the wings...) is qualified to act as PIC, again you don't need to be current. Suppose your student is a commercial pilot with category and class ratings, appropriate endorsements, has a current medical and flight review, and chews his vegetables at least 40 times before swallowing. You don't need to be current when you get in the airplane, if the student is going to act as PIC. Further, you can perform the landings to get current during this flight, because you're not acting as PIC. You need only be sole manipulator of the controls.

In this case, the student retains PIC authority, and you're just a control manipulator.

If the student arrived for the lesson out of currency, you have a choice. You can jump in the airplane and go shoot the landings solo. Or the student can do the same thing. Or you can find a pilot who will act as PIC and fly with you while you accomplish the requisite landings. Your choice.

Any clearer?

 

[JRSLim]

Gotta be current...

When I was a Priv Pilot student, we went out to do my night flight, when my instructor realised he was not night current. He had to go do his three landings with anoutehr (current) instructor before he and I could go up.

Shaun