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Flight plan question

Peter_Mundy wrote:

Ideally I would like three stop and go followed immediately by night VFR to the Dutch border and then IFR to Lelystad.

Peter_Mundy wrote: Peter_Mundy wrote:

My problem, if indeed it is a problem, is no IR

I am a bit lost. Fly IFR but no IR?

ESTL

Just to avoid any doubt if the Dutch CAA read this thread, for the IFR sections of this trip there is an IF instructor/examiner on board so all legal

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

Peter_Mundy wrote:

Just to avoid any doubt if the Dutch CAA read this thread, for the IFR sections of this trip there is an IF instructor/examiner on board so all legal

Ohhhh, big can of worms…. There has been an ongoing debate here in Germany for years – if not decades – about the legality of carrying someone on board during those three landings for regaining currency. You need to do those takeoffs and landings in order to legally carry passengers, but you hold a valid license which allows you to do those takeoffs and landings alone. So some claim that your non-required instructor becomes a passenger which you are not allowed to have on board. Others claim that an instructor is never a passenger, even if he does not need to instruct you on a specific flight. There are entire websites run by flying lawyers who express opposite opinions regarding this topic.

Personally I am with those who claim that taking an instructor with you, even if not required, does not violate the no-passengers rule. But probably we will only ever find out after an accident or incident brings this up in court.

EDDS - Stuttgart

I did my night solo landings with an instructor on board. Think this was noted as SPIC (Special Pilot In Command) in the logs.

lenthamen wrote:

SPIC (Special Pilot In Command)

SPIC stands for Student Pilot In Command.

lenthamen wrote:

I did my night solo landings with an instructor on board.

That’s permitted. But you are no student pilot any longer once you have your license, so there can be no more SPIC entries in your logbook.

EDDS - Stuttgart

lenthamen wrote:

I did my night solo landings with an instructor on board.

No that’s not solo then. Should the concept of solo flight be confusing, FCL.010 defines:

‘Solo flight time’ means flight time during which a student pilot is the sole occupant of an aircraft.

So if you haven’t flown solo for the rating, you did not comply to FCL.810 and should not have gotten the rating. If the instructor is on board, he is instructor and if he insists he would be a passenger, he’d made you flying without a license!

lenthamen wrote:

Think this was noted as SPIC (Special Pilot In Command) in the logs.

No, FCL.010 does define SPIC, too:

‘Student pilot-in-command’ (SPIC) means a student pilot acting as pilot-in-command on a flight with an instructor where the latter will only observe the student pilot and shall not influence or control the flight of the aircraft.

SPIC and Solo time are two completely different things.

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

what_next wrote:

That’s permitted.

Where?

mh
Aufwind GmbH
EKPB, Germany

what_next wrote:

Ohhhh, big can of worms…. There has been an ongoing debate here in Germany for years – if not decades – about the legality of carrying someone on board during those three landings for regaining currency. You need to do those takeoffs and landings in order to legally carry passengers, but you hold a valid license which allows you to do those takeoffs and landings alone. So some claim that your non-required instructor becomes a passenger which you are not allowed to have on board. Others claim that an instructor is never a passenger, even if he does not need to instruct you on a specific flight. There are entire websites run by flying lawyers who express opposite opinions regarding this topic.

Personally I am with those who claim that taking an instructor with you, even if not required, does not violate the no-passengers rule. But probably we will only ever find out after an accident or incident brings this up in court.

My fairly uninformed prior would have been that:
- the PIC is the instructor : he’s not a passenger
- the PIC is the pilot : the instructor is a passenger
not sure about PIC-US

So far, I have logged all my flights with instructor at PUT, with the PIC being the instructor, even if they were just familiarisation flights.

Last Edited by Noe at 26 Oct 14:49

In pre-EASA days the only way to get a night qualification was as SPIC. The Dutch CAA said that if the instructor at no times manipulated the controls then it would qualify as one of the required solo flights. I went through this after the Dutch refused to accept my UK night rating on my JAR licence issued in Holland even though it was on my original UK papers.

EHLE / Lelystad, Netherlands, Netherlands

This must be country dependent because in the UK the absolutely only way to revalidate the night landing stuff was to either fly alone or fly with an FI (who has a valid NQ – an FI has to revalidate his/her NQ privileges too).

This has been widely criticised for years; for example for not allowing a night-qualified pilot as a passenger, which would have made good sense from the risk management POV. The FAA allows that, IIRC.

The “FI as passenger” thing is legally clear because in a SP aircraft there is only one PIC so an FI can claim he was just a passenger and that’s it (*).

And I am not aware of a rule saying an FI cannot swap the duties over mid-flight … a lot of FAA training has been done that way in the UK, e.g. flying an N-reg out of UK airspace for training, where the FI was being paid but old DfT permission was not obtained.

However if you crash, the FI dies (i.e. cannot defend himself), then whether the PIC survives or not, he or his estate will profit substantially by successfully claiming it was a training flight, opening up a claim on the FI’s ATO insurance.

* In the USA, an FI (a “CFI” in FAA speak) has been held up post-crash, despite being a passenger. However I know nothing about the circumstances in those cases and maybe there were unusual factors involved.

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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