My Apache has a Garmin 430 and an STEC 50 autopilot. The altitude hold even works some of the time....

Nicholasblonde, (Or anyone)
In your last post you said to split the cost with another pilot while doing shared hood. How do you log shared hood time? Is it all pic? What are the restrictions/ if any?

Thanks

You have to have a multi rating. You have to conduct the flight in VMC conditions so that a safety pilot is required per FAR's. It's all PIC.

Thanks de727. But what is VMC conditions?

VMC = visual meterological conditions. The concept of a safety pilot is that when a pilot is flying under the hood, you need another pilot to make sure nobody runs in to you. If you're in the clouds (IMC), you don't need a safety pilot.

How does that make sense though? I assume IMC means Instrument Meteorological Conditions. So why does that change anything? Just because there is nothing the safety pilot can do?

someone surely thought of this...
 

Yeah it's hopeless at that point so the regs cut anyone doing practice IFR without a safety lots of slack (kidding).

No one flies in IMC without being on an instrument flight plan under ATC control and usually also with radar surveillance. Even when you are off the ATC radar you are able to use your instruments to hold course in the clouds, and the risk from not being able to see other aircraft is addressed by all aircraft being either under active vectoring by ATC with radar, or by them having a unique cruise altitude they must abide by. One aircraft overtaking another in the same direction on the same route in IMC never happens because although there may be no radar supervision, ATC would not approve the same flight level for two aircraft at the same time over the same route. As a last case backup there is TCAS (onboard Terrain and Collision Avoidance System) in case someone is both off radar and (way) off their assigned altitude. In any case, a safety pilot is not used, but the regs state that in IMC the pilot in command must try and see potential sources of collision ("see and avoid" policy) anyway.

By the way, the rules for flight by instruments are written in blood by historical disasters such as this one

"Just because there is nothing the safety pilot can do?"

Exactly....

Hey, it's a loophole. Kinda nuts, but I don't make the rules. I think there is a way to use the loophole, within limits, to provide a cost effective learning environment for low time newbie IFR pilots to build multi time.

Ari Ben aviator in Ft. Pierce Florida. Get 50 multi hours in a week and a half for under $6k. I did it back in May, about half will be safety pilot time. It was a great learning experience for me and huge confidence builder as I transitioned into bigger aircraft.

Multi time building
 

Back in the days when CRT flight displays were all in shades of green I had a good flying job that was definitely not a time builder. A buddy and I did a lot of multi time building by renting a decent IFR equipped Aztec and doing the safety pilot thing. We would ussually file a 6 leg X/C IFR flight plan and shoot an interesting approach under the hood at the end of each leg.

It was a lot of fun, worthwhile, relatively cheap and very different from the military stuff I was doing at the time.

FT