Texan Aviator,
Upncoming seems to be advanving the position that it's legal, so it must be ok. I won't dispute the question of legality, as far as I can tell it doesn't explicitly violate any regulations. The question really isn't one of legality, but of integrity. There are plenty of things which are perfectly legal but still kinda sleazy. Just an example; the "psychics" that charge dumb people for thier services. Yeah, anyone that stupid probably deserves to lose thier money, but it is still fraud, claiming to to provide something which is not what it is represented to be. Yet it is legal. It is the same with triple logging of PIC. Yeah, it is aparently legal, but you are making a false representation. By putting the time in your logbook, you are representing that you have flown an airplane when in fact you were riding in the back seat. As for upncoming's mealy mouthed rationalizations about who's instructing who .... BS! Let's step back and look at what is *really* happening.
What is the reason for flying like this? Is there some real advantage to having a safety pilot in the right seat instead of the instructor? Can the instructor somehow do a better job of instructing from the back seat as opposed to the right seat?
Obviously, the answer is no, there is nothing real gained by dong this. If there is nothing gained by doing it, why is it being done? Just as obviously, the sole reason this is being done is so that 3 persons can all claim the same flight time as PIC. In other words, the only purpose for this is to misrepresent flight time.
upncoming maintains that no one you encounter across the interview table will have the least hesitation about triple logged PIC.
Hmm...ok, lets think about that for a moment:
Take a look at the responses to this thread.
so far there have been 9 respondents.
Of those:
6 have expressed clear disaproval of the practice.
2 (Checks and 7B2) made facetious comments which I interpret as disaproval (if I am incorrect in this interpretation checks and 7B2 may correct me)
Only one (upncoming) has has clarly come out in favor of the practice. (Well of course he's gonna say it's OK, he has a logbook full of triple logged time.)
Alrighty then, ol' upncoming says he had an interviewer who was perfectly cool with it. Maybe, maybe not. Are you going to put much stock in the truth of the statements of somone with a logbook full of bogus time? I wouldn't, but that's just me. Lets ignore that and assume that his claim is true, ok so he got lucky, that guy didn't have a problem with it. Bear in mind that is just one interviewer out of thousands. So, do you want to gamble that you're going to get lucky too? What are the odds? According to the informal, unscientific statistics from this thread, 89% of the people out there think triple logging is kinda sleazy, and 11% think it's just peachy keen. Putting aside issues of integrity and legality, and just looking at the numbers it's a pretty poor bet.
On poster has already stated he wouldn't hire someone with that sort of bogus time. You can add me to that list. I have in the past been in a hiring position, and who knows, I may again someting in the future. If I know an applicant has been triple logging, they aren't getting the job.