Aviathor wrote:
And I recently flew with @Jujupilot who was also an exemplary passenger and made a couple of useful comments IIRC.
Thank you ! If you need a safety pilot someday, let me know !
I’m with JasonC on this one. Improvising some sort of multi-crew concept, that then is different depending on who is PIC ??? is fraught with danger and ignores the lessons that have been learned in multi-crew operations in the first place. There is a reason why we do CRM courses now.
CRM = Crew Resource Management. Using the available resource as a double check, as a second opinion, extra pair of eyes, ok. For the rest, other than in a training environment I think it’s a bad idea to delegate tasks as the standard procedure. You’re the PIC and you must be in the loop at all times. Letting others handle radio calls, frequencies, navdata etc. is involving two people too much into something that is the task of one. These are simple aircraft in a simple operation. I don’t mean that derogatory, but to say that we should not overcomplicate the task. If you need the second person to conduct the flight safely I wonder whether you should conduct the flight in the first place.
The only exception I think is the role of safety pilot, which is an accepted (standard) method of maintaining lookout during simulated instrument flying.
I’ll get my coat… 
I share my plane with another guy and when we flew together we used to do radio for each other. That worked nicely until the day we got near a TS during descent for approach. Since I was doing the radio, I immediately asked for a heading change, but without confirming with PIC. PIC wanted a different heading, so I had to ask again. Then we were asked where we want to hold and again we had different ideas. Discussion ensued. It all lead to more confusion and further complications. From that time, I just sit quiet and speak only if asked when in RHS. As private pilots we’re not trained for that kind of cooperation.
It was on this flight and you can clearly see the confusion at the end: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/sp-tbm#f7e9e62
Archie wrote:
I’m with JasonC on this one. Improvising some sort of multi-crew concept, that then is different depending on who is PIC ??? is fraught with danger and ignores the lessons that have been learned in multi-crew operations in the first place. There is a reason why we do CRM courses now.CRM = Crew Resource Management. Using the available resource as a double check, as a second opinion, extra pair of eyes, ok. For the rest, other than in a training environment I think it’s a bad idea to delegate tasks as the standard procedure. You’re the PIC and you must be in the loop at all times.
I agree with you, but not for that reason. The fact than the PNF does the radio does not relieve the PF from being in the loop, especially when the PF is the PIC.
But in the absence of company procedures none of the pilots knows what to be expected of the other, so it creates uncertainty and opens up to misunderstandings as loco’s example shows.
Hang on one cotton picking moment this is light GA (mostly anyway). The cockpit on the whole is hardly complex and if two pilots between them cant agree on a simple working arrangment then you must wonder if they should be pilots in the first place. I dont think you can compare CRM in a commercial category aircraft with two pilots sharing some of the workload in GA.
After all if one is doing the radio and the transponder for example what can go wrong! A wrong frequency dialed in – eek, its hardly the end of the world.
Sorry, but it is hardly rocket science.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
The cockpit on the whole is hardly complex and if two pilots between them cant agree on a simple working arrangment then you must wonder if they should be pilots in the first place.The issue is not agreeing to the working arrangement but sticking to it and knowing that it is a good arrangement.
E.g. the Swedish Volunteer Air Corps (formally a commercial operator with an exemption to use PPL’s) always fly with two-persons crews, but there is no sharing of piloting duties. The reason is precisely that private pilots are not trained in two-pilot operations. The PNF monitors the PF and helps with navigation but doesn’t offload the PF in flying the aircraft.
Airborne_Again wrote:
The issue is not agreeing to the working arrangement but sticking to it and knowing that it is a good arrangement.
You are back to there being some magic in CRM in most light pistons. I dont think this is the case. The cockpit is non complex. I think we are complicating something that is not. Sharing in light singles is about the other person working the radio, the transponder, maybe the GPS and approaches, these are the tasks that give each something to do and reduce work load. On the whole they really arent that critical anyway, and any reasonable pilot is going to be keeping an eye out. Of course it is not for all. I accept that a novice pilot being “helped” by another novice pilot is not a good idea.
Two experienced pilots woking together in a light piston single or twin is really not that complicated, and I am convinced we are trying to make more out of an important skill set in commercial cockpits that is very relevant to a much more complicated enviroment to a very straight forward enviroment.
Anyway that is my opinion.
Two experienced pilots woking together in a light piston single or twin is really not that complicated…
But it’s not needed and it can only cause confusion. Without common procedures known to both persons (in any task sharing environment) you can only get two confused persons should anything goes wrong.
I agree its not needed, but then we all do lots of things not necessary. It is on the other hand a pleasant way to share a flight with another experienced pilot and give both something to do. I am still not sure what confusion you have in mind? Maybe some examples would illustrate your concerns?
I believe @loco gave good example. I’m ready to listen the other guy in cockpit but sharing the tasks is something that is better to be avoided if not properly defined. The examples of handling radio or transponder are just ridiculous – don’t get me wrong but what does it mean in single pilot aircraft? Somebody will dial in the frequency instead of PF? Or pefrorm all communication, readbacks etc. and execute related actions? So if the other person does e.g. taxi readback where will I as PF find the instructions – at his notes or mine? If he reads back headings who sets heading bug and who confirms it’s set? I don’t say there’s some magic behind CRM – I just say if it’s not defined, known and aligned it doesn’t have any place in cockpit.
