EFIS COMP MON

From what I understand, the company is indeed communicating to clients that BOTH pilots are "qualified". Although I haven't personally done one of these right-seat ballast trips, I can only assume that these sandbaggers are doing what our SIC's usually do....radio comm's, assisting with baggage loading/ unloading, working the FMS (if they're familiar doing so).

I just don't understand how this could be explained given a ramp check? You've got a guy in company uniform, sitting up front in the right seat, and yet he's listed as a passenger? And I know the company considers this as "duty" time (as they obviously should) for the full-time company pilots.

It just rubs me the wrong way, nor am I able to really justify it as being truly legal.

dapper993

If they are advertising a qualified crewmember or are putting a surcharge on their charter quote indicating they are providing a SIC then I would think they would be at risk of liability especially if an incident or accident occurred. As you previously stated they are not qualified in that aircraft.

I too would assume that they probably would be doing the things you listed and if they are as i previously stated they could face an enforcement action if caught. In the event of a ramp check i don't see what the inspector could say if they were truly not doing anything. Especially if ATC tapes were reviewed and passengers were debriefed by the inspector.

As far as listing that person as a passenger...Part 1 does not provide a definition for that term but online dictionaries do indicate that a passenger does not have pay a fare to be considered a passenger on an airline.

If you are not comfortable with accepting those trips then I think you are right in not accepting them. However there is no FAR that I am aware of that states that you can't.

dapper993

FYI from personal experience I have flown with a right seater in the same situation and when I did, I briefed him that as far as I was concerned he was just along for the ride and politely asked him to do nothing and he did.

USMCFLYR

Spoke with a guy today that said that he basically hasn't logged time since 1987 I'm thinking that as long as he gets paid - he could care less what they have him do in the airplane!

USMCFLYR

dapper993

Agreed.... For the record I do care about logging time for the right price However a guy that I fly with who has over 30k hours of flight time probably wouldn't care if he couldn't log a few of them. Now if you didn't pay him to do it I can pretty much guarantee you he wouldn't be in that seat.

FlyJSH

If that is indeed the case, sounds to me like they are defrauding the customer: promising a crew of two but only providing one pilot and a loader.

yesyou

I saw this kind of thing happen pretty regularly at a small charter company I worked for. All the planes were single pilot IFR certified light twins. The only times they had anyone in the right seat was when the customer asked for one, allowing the customer to feel safer having two pilots onboard. The owner of the charter company reasoned that as long as the second pilot was a commercial MEL, then he qualified for the right seat. However, he knew there was a grey area, and would list the second pilot as a passenger. Of course, the second pilot never just sat there. He would load the plane, calculate the W/B, pre-flight the plane, work the radios, etc. The second pilot was usually just shy of 135 minimums and being trained for the operation while sitting right seat. By the way, there was no uniform so the right seater looked like a passenger.

lstorm2003

In reality having the right seat "passenger" in the plane vs not have him in there at all, the flight is probably better off with him there. Think about it, what if something actually did happen to the left seat pilot? Even if the guy isn't technically qualified according to the FARs, he more than likely could handle the plane if the pilot were to become incapacitated. Or what if the plane inadvertently encounters some weather and the auto pilot stops working? Wouldn't it be nice to have someone there to assist with charts, approach, plates, programming approaches etc while the left seat pilot is busy flying the plane?

macgruber

this is more of a question than statement, but regarding the "autopilot in lieu of SIC" I was told that you either have to operate the aircraft as single pilot 135 with a functioning autopilot, OR two pilots, SIC being a commercial, multi with an SIC sign off which is pretty easy to do. In other words you cannot say your operating the aircraft with two pilots, but also say your operating as single pilot with an autopilot. It is an either or deal. I think if something happened and you went back and said yeah but that guy was a passenger, the feds would turn on the fryer. this is all logic aside by the way as we all know four eyes are better than two no matter what the experience level is.

l2flare

I don't think it's really an issue of them saying it's both a 135 single pilot with an A/P and a 2 crew at same time. They're only calling it single pilot with an A/P the issue is more that the SIC is probably performing SIC duties, which makes him a crew member and now the flight is not legal. ORRRRR the SIC really is just a sandbag, which means they're probably guilty of false advertising at the least or insurance fraud if they're lying to the insurance company about the flights being a 2 man crew.