Originally Posted by
EMAW
The 135 regs require an SIC for IFR passenger-carrying flight, so I’m assuming that they have the OpSpec allowing autopilot in lieu of the SIC? If you talk to5 different people, you’re gonna get 5 different answers.
Unless you have an autopilot and the authority within Ops Specs to use it in lieu of an SIC, which many, if not most, IFR 135 operators have.
135 rules are clear. All personnel must be trained. If the guy does anything but just sit there, as in they touch the controls, they need to be trained for that function. This means you just can't throw a guy up there with a pilot cert and have them "help out", unless they've been trained by the carrier. That does not, however, make them a required crewmember. Sometimes the carrier gets an insurance break for using an SIC, which is fine and dandy, but unless that plane requires two pilots by regulation or type certificate, it's not a required crewmember. It's grey where you have two pilots and an operable autopilot and you want to log SIC because you are "not going to use the autopilot", FAA policy (headquarters) has not supported this as log-able SIC time, I would assume from the fact that you can't say it was "required" for the flight. Now, you can log it as anything you want and the airline you are applying for might or might not accept that for hiring purposes. The FAA doesn't care what you do there, only what you use in applying for certificate or rating/privilege.