Safety Pilot - Required to log?

It's obvious when you play the safety pilot game. There is no way around it. Whether or not your future employer cares is the real question.....

...and the question that I am most worried about. I've heard Skywest is a pretty big stickler on SP time, but I can live without working there. My main concern is AE or XJT. Other than a regional, is there really that many jobs out there to land with 100 ME hours or so; excluding the CFI / aerial-photography type jobs.

Pretty much worried about if I couldn't land a job with a regional because of the SP issue, would it have been pretty pointless to buy the ME time?
 
...and the question that I am most worried about. I've heard Skywest is a pretty big stickler on SP time, but I can live without working there. My main concern is AE or XJT. Other than a regional, is there really that many jobs out there to land with 100 ME hours or so; excluding the CFI / aerial-photography type jobs.

Pretty much worried about if I couldn't land a job with a regional because of the SP issue, would it have been pretty pointless to buy the ME time?

Everyone that I know who interviewed at Eagle has said no SP time accepted. I'm not sure about ExpressJet though.
 
Just log all the time as PIC and not worry about what you should log. You are there for a reason, possible paying half the costs, and if the #### hits the fan, you will help the pilot out. You are acting as much as PIC as an airline pilot that has Otto flying.
 
Just log all the time as PIC and not worry about what you should log. You are there for a reason, possible paying half the costs, and if the #### hits the fan, you will help the pilot out. You are acting as much as PIC as an airline pilot that has Otto flying.

Excactly my point.
 
Give us a shout when you get back from the FSDO!!

Wait -- are you saying that logging safety pilot time as PIC time, something that is clearly permissible, is something that's going to get you a call from the FAA?

I sure as hell hope not. I've logged it and I didn't put down anything denoting I was acting as a safety pilot either. If I have to put something down saying I'm the safety pilot, I'm in trouble.
 
Give us a shout when you get back from the FSDO!!

XF, I'll go to the FSDO when you find me a reg that requires me to denote that I'm acting as SP in my logbook. Till then...

Murph
 
Wait -- are you saying that logging safety pilot time as PIC time, something that is clearly permissible, is something that's going to get you a call from the FAA?

I sure as hell hope not. I've logged it and I didn't put down anything denoting I was acting as a safety pilot either. If I have to put something down saying I'm the safety pilot, I'm in trouble.


No, not at all, what I was implying (probably not clearly conveyed) is that have a "Just go ahead and log it as xxx, attitude will eventually get you into trouble.

As the thread was started in am attempt to gain clarity on the issue, I think that a “Throw up your hands, the hell with it just do it” approach might not be the best way to go in the end.
 
Just log all the time as PIC and not worry about what you should log. You are there for a reason, possible paying half the costs, and if the #### hits the fan, you will help the pilot out. You are acting as much as PIC as an airline pilot that has Otto flying.

While I could see the point, I think jrh had a good point:

It will still be obvious what's going on because you still must log the name of your safety pilot while under the hood. So if your logbook shows a whole bunch of PIC cross country trips, with the "Remarks" field alternating between "Safety pilot--John Doe" and "blank"...hmmm....is it not going to be obvious you were doing a timebuilding program? Anybody with half a brain can tell what was going on.

I think they would know solely based on that point. Thoughts?
 
"I've heard Skywest is a pretty big stickler on SP time"

Seems like I just mentioned this last week in another thread. According to SkywChris, who used to do interviews at Skywest, safety pilot time doesn't count towards their 100 hour multi time min. So....you'd have to log 200 hours of timebuilding to get 100 hours of "real" multi time that meets their mins.

"Anybody with half a brain can tell what was going on"

People doing pilot interviews will know the score. For example, you have a bunch of XC time in a twin, don't have a multi CFI, and don't have any work history flying twins, it's pretty obvious you're buying timebuilding flights. If you're doing the EagleJet thing logging time in a Metro but never worked for Amflight, it's pretty obvious. None of this has a bearing on the legality of logging the time, however.
 
"Anybody with half a brain can tell what was going on"

People doing pilot interviews will know the score. For example, you have a bunch of XC time in a twin, don't have a multi CFI, and don't have any work history flying twins, it's pretty obvious you're buying timebuilding flights. If you're doing the EagleJet thing logging time in a Metro but never worked for Amflight, it's pretty obvious. None of this has a bearing on the legality of logging the time, however.

Correct. I just wish there was any easier way to tell what airlines accepted - time wise.
 
Correct. I just wish there was any easier way to tell what airlines accepted - time wise.

Here's my take on timebuilding. No matter if a particular airline accepts safety pilot time or not, you're not hurting yourself to do it.

Let's say you go rent a twin for 50 hours, pay full price at $200/hr, and do all the flying yourself. That would cost $10,000. The 50 hours would most certainly be looked at as legitimate to any airline.

Or, in a timebuilding program, you could pay half the rate ($100/hr) and get 100 hours for $10,000. You would get 50 hours of time for yourself and 50 hours of safety pilot time. The 50 hours of time for yourself would definitely be legit. The 50 hours of safety pilot time may or may not be accepted.

So, in either scenario, you're paying the same amount ($10,000). In both scenarios you get a guaranteed 50 hours of legit time. In one scenario you get 50 hours of safety pilot time thrown in for free, you might say. And remember, even if the airline you want doesn't accept safety pilot time, you're still getting the experience of being in the twin, flying cross countries, working as a crew, etc.

My point is that if you're going to buy time, a "timebuilding" program is still a better deal than renting on your own, no matter what your future employer thinks. If they take the safety pilot time, it's icing on the cake. See what I'm saying?
 
Certainly, and thanks for your insight.

Say if I got my MEI and then went to buy the timebuilding, couldn't I log that as Dual Instruction and PIC time? Granted I would have to actually teach stuff along the way. But if we were both doing things like adjusting throttles, syncing props, leaning the engines/mixtures, monitoring the 'systems', making radio calls, keeping track of the charts and all that jazz, wouldn't that be considered dual instruction?
 
Say if I got my MEI and then went to buy the timebuilding, couldn't I log that as Dual Instruction and PIC time? Granted I would have to actually teach stuff along the way. But if we were both doing things like adjusting throttles, syncing props, leaning the engines/mixtures, monitoring the 'systems', making radio calls, keeping track of the charts and all that jazz, wouldn't that be considered dual instruction?

It could be, but I'd be careful going that way.

I'm a relatively low time multi pilot, and I think I've got the whole "syncing props, monitoring the systems, ..." thing down pretty well. That was the point of my multi-engine training. I wouldn't let an MEI sign my logbook if it was only a simple, day VFR cross country we did together. I don't consider that legit instruction.

Now, if we did some engine failures throughout the flight, night flights, actual low IFR approaches, international flying (like Canada or the Bahamas), or something like that, I'd consider that to be legitimate instruction. Basically, anything that I don't do very often on my own and feel I could use some pointers and evaluation on.

Whatever you do, have a good reason for it. Don't log anything as "dual given" unless you really were acting as an instructor.
 
"wouldn't that be considered dual instruction?"

I don't see why not. And it lends some credibility to the time, in my book.
 
True, however I would only be giving dual-instruction when the other pilot was under the "hood". Also, I wouldn't have to state in his logbook, when I'm putting in the training time, the items that we covered while I was giving him dual-instruction would I? In 61.51 it lists the items that have to be logged when working towards a cert./rating and also towards flight currency. So if I'm giving instruction just to brush him up on some things but it isn't necessarily towards flight currency or a rating, would you be required to put what was covered?
 
Also, I wouldn't have to state in his logbook, when I'm putting in the training time, the items that we covered while I was giving him dual-instruction would I? In 61.51 it lists the items that have to be logged when working towards a cert./rating and also towards flight currency. So if I'm giving instruction just to brush him up on some things but it isn't necessarily towards flight currency or a rating, would you be required to put what was covered?

Hmm...good question. I'd still say to include a description of what was covered.

61.51(h) says this:

(h) Logging training time. (1) A person may log training time when that person receives training from an authorized instructor in an aircraft, flight simulator, or flight training device.

(2) The training time must be logged in a logbook and must:

(i) Be endorsed in a legible manner by the authorized instructor; and

(ii) Include a description of the training given, the length of the training lesson, and the authorized instructor's signature, certificate number, and certificate expiration date.

--------------------------

This section makes no mention of anything to do with ratings or currency, so I take it to mean this applies to all training, no matter if the training is required or not.

Besides, if it's legit training, there shouldn't be any trouble finding something to write down...right?
 
Besides, if it's legit training, there shouldn't be any trouble finding something to write down...right?

Certainly, I was just asking a general question.

Thanks for the help. So I guess if I'm going to do the multi-time building than it will be best to get my MEI first just to cover some bases.
 
So I guess if I'm going to do the multi-time building than it will be best to get my MEI first just to cover some bases.

I think it's a good idea. That's my plan as well. If you're buying twin time, you might as well at least get another rating out of it! :)
 
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