Hi. A friend and I have been building time for our commercial certificates and we have been doing the safety pilot time method.

Basically, if the flight was 3 hours and he was under the hood 2.8 of it, I would log 2.8 as PIC... however (and this may be the error) I would log total flight time as ONLY 2.8... not the extra .2

Now my 2 questions are A) If I apply for a job, will this look fishy cause my PIC time is the same as the total time for that flight - they might think that I logged PIC the WHOLE time... even when the left seater was not under the hood.

B) would it look bad if I started doing that now? say I go on another 3 hour flight but this time log PIC for 2.8 but then log total time for 3.0?

Or should I go back and change all the mistakes and transcribe it over to a new log book?

 

You were right in what you did. What would the extra .2 be, SIC?

Since you were not needed for the last .2 you were just a passenger.


A:NO

B:Yes, bad and incorrect

 

As a safety pilot you are a required crew member and allowed to log PIC per the regs...but only while the other guy is under the hood. When he is visual, you are not a required crew member and cannot log PIC or total time. Sounds like you're doing it right.

 

I logged all safety pilot time as PIC, when the left seat pilot is under the hood per the FARs, and all other times since he is not checked out in the aircraft and obviously cannot "act" as PIC.

 

Alright, thats what I thought but when I went to check, I came across this website

http://www.geocities.com/cfidarren/r-logsptime.htm

And this made it look like I should log the PIC only when under the hood but total time for the entire flight.

Thanks for the replies!

 

I have been doing some time building myself over the past couple of weeks. I have been confused about the whole thing. If I was the safety pilot for a 2.1 flight and the other pilot was under the hood for 1.9, I would record Dual time as 2.1, PIC as 1.9, and Total Time as 2.1 ... I guess this is wrong. But according to this CFI, that is how you do it. I have also been recording the safety pilot time as X-Country time, which I also assume is wrong.

What is the best way to make all these changes to my logbook, if these entries are wrong? Should I start a new log book?

Thanks

 

Technically and legally you can log ANYTHING you want, as long as you don't try to apply it to FAA requirements for ratings or currency. But the reality is that you want to stick to the conventions to avoid confusing potential employers at an interview....


Total time canot be logged when you are a passenger. You must be a required crewmember.

The safety pilot is a required crewmember when the hood is on, but he is not required when the hood is off, and is therefore a passenger. Don't log total time when the hood is off.

Many of these kinds of grey-area rumors get stated by unscrupulous flight academies which want to sell as much "flight time" as possible to their victims/students. As far as they are concerned, if an engine is running and you're close enough to hear it, you should be logging it.

EDIT: I noticed you said you were logging dual...if you have a CFII, you can log dual, total, and PIC for the entire flight, assuming that legit instruction is occuring. If you are acting as a CFII, you are not a safety pilot.

The FAA only allows dual for legit instruction...which does not include time building. I wouldn't log vast amounts of time-building as dual. Legit instruction seems to includes:

- For a rating, cert., or endorsement.
- IPC/BFR/Currency.
- Aircaft/Club checkout.
- Route/Area Fam.
- Insurance requirement.

If you are giving large amounts of dual to a guy who doesn't seem to need it, you are pushing things. ESPECIALLY if the other guy is giving YOU dual on every other leg. If he's qualified to give you dual, then he probably doesn't need dual from you, right? Exception: Two guys who go up to get IFR current on a VMC day could take turns acting as CFII...but that doesn't take 100 hours.

 

Thanks for that answer...it helps me out a lot, it looks like I need to really go back and edit about 2 full pages of the log book...that's going to look pretty bad...should I just start a new log book?

And I have to take off those X-Country times for being a safety pilot as well. Yikes

 

Don't start over, just make a single corrective entry...on the next space in your book put in todays date, then put in positive or negative corrective numbers in all the columns affected, and note the reason (and error dates) for the correction. This will bring your total times back to reality without whiting out pages of entries or starting over. It's OK to have errors which are accounted for and neatly corrected.

 

I appreciate the authority and plausibility of Rick's statement that when not a required crewmember you are a passenger and do not get to log it. The problem is, the column heading in my Jeppeson logbook on the far right reads "Duration of Flight" not "Duration of Acting as a Crewmember". I have always logged the safety time (only) in the PIC column, and entered the actual duration of the flight under the column so-marked. Apparently it is controversial because Darren says it should be this way and it is the way I was taught to log it in previous times though I admit to not having a reference to lend.