CFI logging requirement

Michael wrote:
: The situation you described (almost) was SOP at a flight school in the
: Houston area. The specific situation was a hooded pilot in the left
: seat of a Seminole flying instruments and logging PIC (as sole
: manipulator) and dual received, another pilot in the right seat
: watching for traffic and acting as PIC and logging it, and a CFII/MEI
: in the back seat giving instrument dual and logging PIC and dual
: given.

: They did it this way for years. Nobody was busted, nobody lost his
: logged time - but once it got out, they stopped doing it.

I read about that one. I know it's "frowned upon," but the situation I'm
envisioning isn't to try to get the most loggable PIC time, but rather to keep
insurance requirements from being ridiculous for low-time in type. More of an
insurance requirement than an FAA logging issue.... although I guess one could use it
for that as well.

: It's not all that gray an area:
: 91.109 (a) No person may operate a civil aircraft (except a manned
: free balloon) that is being used for flight instruction unless that
: aircraft has fully functioning dual controls.

: It doesn't actually say that the instructor must sit at the other
: control seat, but it's tough to argue that this wasn't the intent of
: the regulation.

: Michael

My spin on this is that the FAA like to leave the regulations vague enough for
them to weasel out of any wrongdoing should an incident occur. Since they will find
something to bust you for no matter what happened, you might as well interpret the
imprecise legaleeze (sleaze?) to your advantage. Again... if nobody has a problem
then there's no problem.

-Cory

************************************************** ***********************
* Cory Papenfuss *
* Electrical Engineering candidate Ph.D. graduate student *
* Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University *
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