"Casey Wilson" wrote:
I have, according to my logbook, only nine entries as safety pilot. To
my recollection, in every case we talked about under what conditions I would
assume controls...not that I would NEVER touch them.

That's fine, as long as you both understood the situation so there would
be no surprises. Did you also talk about HOW you would assume control?
Consider the following conversation:

ATC: Cessna 123, traffic one o'clock and a mile, southbound, climbing
out of 3000.

Safety: I've got it.

Pilot Flying: OK

How is the pilot flying to interpret "I've got it"? Does it mean "I see
the traffic", or does it mean, "I'm assuming control"?

How is the safety pilot to interpret "OK"? Does it mean "Now that you
see the guy, I assume you're going to keep your eye on him", or does it
mean, "I'm releasing the controls to you"?

One is the right number of people to be in control of the plane at any
given time. Either zero or two is asking for trouble. Take a couple of
minutes before the flight to make sure you know how you're going to work
things.

In the first case perhaps he would have eventually gotten it together --
I didn't think so. My first action was to tell the pilot he was drifting way
to the right of centerline after he executed a missed. When he did nothing
to correct, I got the feeling he was very disoriented and assumed control.

Was drifting to the right of centerline a bad thing? If the missed
procedure said, "fly runway heading" and there was a crosswind from the
left, you're going to drift to the right. That's the way it works.

In the second case, it was my judgement that immediate action had to be
taken when ATC called "Traffic Alert." The only other earlier call from ATC
(flight following) was that the other aircraft was "...five miles and
climbing, no radio contact." Should I have seen the other plane. I dunno, it
was white against an overcast and virtually motionless. Maybe, maybe no

If you never saw the other plane, what information did you have which
put you in a better position than the pilot flying to make an evasive
maneuver? You both heard the same radio calls and neither of you had
visual contact with the traffic.