The current definitions in the FARs really do seem to confuse the situation. Transpac made a reference to the USN way which effectively equates to:
Aircraft Commander = FAR part 1; you sign for plane, you log the “A” time even if you’re in the rack ‘cause its your a$$ in the sling if something happens.
1st Pilot = FAR 61.51 “sole manipulator”
2nd Pilot = FAR 61.51 “SIC”
People get into discussions about logging 61.51 PIC without a current NATOPS check, but the salient point is that A time = part 1 time. I think that if the FARs changed part 1 to read something similar to Aircraft Commander, Captain or just something other than the “PIC” term used in 61.51, then much of the confusion would be alleviated.
As far as who logs the A time with two qual’d Aircraft Commanders: I’ve been in commands where the senior guy, by rank, normally signs for the plane and other commands where the Ops would schedule to balance the A time across the pilots. In all cases, the bottom line was whoever Ops put as the Aircraft Commander on the schedule that the CO then signed was who signed for the plane. The key point being that the CO approved who was in command for each flight.
In every plane I’ve flown in the Navy, we swap seats. At the training command we train the kids starting in the left seat for the C-12 & T-44. Even in the tactical trainers, you are trained primarily in the front seat, but you’ll still spend some time in the trunk under the bag on instrument hops (dating myself here, at least we used to, not sure what we’re doing in the T-45 now, may be mostly simulator time now).
In the T-39 & C-26, once you got the initial check, you were legal to land with pax. Granted we had the luxury of having the 5 sims at Flight Safety and then an in house syllabus of another 10-20 hours w/ 30-50 T&Gs in the plane before the check-ride, almost all in the left seat. Later the aircraft commander syllabus was another 10-20 hours, but with landings in the right seat and learning how to recognize “new copilot mistakes,” etc. The IP syllabus is all from the right seat. (P-3 is similar but with some tighter restrictions on landing with pax (not crew) because they don’t get a check-ride right away.)
When I was flying those airplanes (39&26), and with a new copilot, I’d usually give them the extra leg if we had an odd number of legs, regardless of the pax situation. Obviously if the were extenuating circumstances (going into Northolt, the wx is crap and he hasn’t been in there yet) then I’d take the leg from the left seat. As the copilots got more experienced, I would start making them take landings on empty legs from the right seat in preparation for the aircraft commander syllabus. It all seems a little bass-ackwards from the way the commercial side does things.
Anyway, just a different perspective and my 5 cents this morning. Fly safe everyone.
VVJM265
