What does P1 actually mean?

There's an EASA defined log book, but I'm not going to bother looking it up in the EASA documentation.

The really good and experienced pilots I know personally probably haven't recorded an individual flight in 20 years.

Don't they need to do this to prove currency for passengers, night or IR?

10,000 hours = Skygod

I wondered how many hours were needed. Oh well.... 9,800 hours to go!

Don't they need to do this to prove currency for passengers, night or IR?

Insurance companies in my experience ask for the times, not proof of them, prior to issuing the policy. And if anybody had a need to produce a log of recent flying experience and didn't have one on hand, they can create an accurate record prior to any discussions.

A logbook filled out in pen by the guy doing the "proving" is not proof of the accuracy of his entries. In a free country where people's movements aren't recorded (back to that again :-) nobody can easily prove or disprove a pilot's currency one way or another. Basically society can accept that situation, let the courts figure it out in individual cases, or move towards tyranny.

I fill out my logbook because as a relatively low time pilot, I enjoy it. Its also useful to me when I take a BFR from somebody I don't know. BFR sign-offs are actually the only time anybody else has access to my logbook. The aircraft I fly are my property and they don't ask me for proof of anything before I can fly them.

Legal Definitions in Part FCL are:

‘Pilot-in-command’ (PIC) means the pilot designated as being in command and charged with the safe conduct of the flight.

‘Pilot-in-command under supervision’ (PICUS) means a co-pilot performing, under the supervision of the pilot-in- command, the duties and functions of a pilot-in-command.

‘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.

‘Dual instruction time’ means flight time or instrument ground time during which a person is receiving flight instruction from a properly authorised instructor.

From AMC1.FCL050

(b) Logging of time:

(1) PIC flight time:

(i) the holder of a licence may log as PIC time all of the flight time during which he or she is the PIC;

(ii) the applicant for or the holder of a pilot licence may log as PIC time all solo flight time, flight time as SPIC and flight time under supervision provided that such SPIC time and flight time under supervision are countersigned by the instructor;

(iii) the holder of an instructor certificate may log as PIC all flight time during which he or she acts as an instructor in an aircraft; (iv) the holder of an examiner’s certificate may log as PIC all flight time during which he or she occupies a pilot’s seat and acts as an examiner in an aircraft;

(4) instruction time: a summary of all time logged by an applicant for a licence or rating as flight instruction, instrument flight instruction, instrument ground time, etc., may be logged if certified by the appropriately rated or authorised instructor from whom it was received;

All flying carried out as PIC is entered in the logbook as ‘PIC’. A pilot flying as ‘PICUS’ or ‘SPIC’ enters flying time as ‘PIC’ but all such entries are to be certified by the PIC or FI in the ‘Remarks’ column of the logbook.

You also need to look at Article 79 and CAP804 Section 1 Part E. The term PUT does not appear in any of them only "DUAL" PUT was defined in CAPs 53/54 as having the same meaning as DUAL

P1/S or its similar equivalent PICU/S are very important to co-pilots in a commercial two crew environment for the purpose of "un-freezing" their ATPL licence in the UK. A defined amount of P1 time is required for issue of this licence over and above their CPL; because these co-pilots can never record P1 in a two crew environment they log P1/S or PICU/S when physically flying the aircraft (not in the solely monitoring role) as a way of accumulating these required P1 hours. P2 is recorded when flying in the monitoring role.

For established flying instructors / para drop /single crew air taxi/charter etc. pilots these P1/S PICU/S hours are less important since they have usually acquired all the necessary P1 hours already in these GA jobs. For instance, in my first two-crew airline I recorded my entire co-pilot hours as P2 as I already had 1000hrs P1 from a single crew air taxi job.

.....and to answer the original poster's question, P1 to all intents and purposes is the same as PIC. It doesn't help that various logbook publishers choose one or the other. As another poster suggests, check which regime you are under (eg EASA, JAA, FAA, etc.) and see what they use. You are highly unlikely to have any Authority challenge your use of PIC when their preferred description is P1, and vice versa.

Not necessarily quite the definitions I use myself, but my quarter-century-old Airtour, CAA approved logbook marked as being "in accordance with the requirements of the Air Navigation Order 1972", has 2 pages of definitions. Much of it is fairly irrelevant to the conversation, however, three points are relevant:-

(7) The alternative columns provided in the divisions Day and Night and headed In Charge, Second and Dual are designed to facilitate the separate totalling of the flying hours during which the holder acted in a particular operating capacity independently and those during which the duties were performed under a superior member acting in that particular capacity. When an aircraft carries two or more pilots as members of the operating crew one of them shall, before the flight commences, be designed by the operator of the aircraft as Captain. His name shall be entered in the column headed "Captain". If the holder of the log book is the Captain the word "Self" may be entered in that column. A pilot's flying time shall be entered as "in charge" if it is performed when the pilot is flying as Captain of the aircraft; he is entitled to enter the full duration of the flight. A pilot flying as "pilot in charge under supervision" shall enter flying time acquired in this manner in the "in charge" column annotated with the remark "P.1(U/S)" and countersigned in each instance by the Captain of the aircraft concerned. The flying time entered as "Second" will be in all cases be the precise period of duty, as determined by the Captain of the aircraft, during which the holder acted in the course of the flight in the capacity shown.

(10) The following system of notation shall be used for entries in the column headed "Holder's Operating Capacity":-

P.1 Pilot in Charge

P.1 (U/S) Pilot in Charge under supervision (each entry is to be countersigned by the Captain of the aircraft concerned)

P.2 Second pilot exercising the privileges of his licence as a required member of the operating crew

P.3 Pupil pilot; pilot under training

N.1 Navigator responsible for the navigation of the aircraft

N.2 Navigator acting under supervision

R.1 Radio telegraphy operator responsible for all communication so made

R.2 Radio telegraphy operator acting under supervision or gaining practical experience for a superior licence

E.1 Flight Engineer responsible for the operation of the aircraft's power units and auxiliary systems

E.2 Flight Engineer acting under supervision

(11) When the holder is a pupil pilot receiving flying training instruction under the direction of a duly authorised flying instructor, the words "Pupil pilot under training" should be inserted in the "Remarks" column against the entry and if practice landings are made in the course of the flight, the number of such practice landings should be shown in the "Remarks" column. Similarly, in any other case, if any pilot for the purposes of securing qualifications for a licence makes a series of flights covered by a single entry, the number of landings made during the course of such series of flights should be entered in the "Remarks" column.

Helpful-ish, but somewhat confused about how exactly it wants flight under instruction to be logged - as I think I can see about 4 different ways there.

Regarding logging - proper, punctilious pilots, in my opinion, keep proper records. The 10,000th flight should be as important as the 10th.

G

I expect this will change under EASA, but the details have not yet been published, AFAIK.

Yes they have, I listed them in post 24.

I assumed LASORS would actaully contain the definitive current rule ??

LASORS is dead and buried and has been replaced with CAP804, now in its 4th re-print, but still full of errors! Section 1 Part E

As I said earlier P1 is a seat designation, the left hand seat in a multi pilot aeroplane. Who sits in it depends upon a variety of factors. As it is often the PIC then the two terms are frequently but incorrectly interchanged.

Is it important? Yes, because some controls may only be reachable from that seat and its important that whoever sits there knows how to operate them. I recall a serious incident where the person sitting in the P1 seat did not know how to change the seat height and after asking the P2, where it was on the opposite side of the seat, managed to select the wrong handle and fired the canopy jettison at 35,000 over the North Sea!