Episode 77

SPC#77 – Logging for Mere Mortals

Join us in this 'Beyond the Checkride' only episode of the Student Pilot Cast with hosts Kent Shook and Bill Williams as they delve into the intricacies of logging Pilot in Command (PIC) time. They discuss the nuances of FAA regulations, personal flying experiences, and scenarios like instructor flights, safety pilot roles, and questions around cross-country time. Learn how to navigate the complex rules and ensure your logbook entries are accurate. Perfect for student pilots and seasoned aviators alike, this episode is essential for anyone looking to deepen their understanding of flight logging. See the video version of this segment here: https://youtu.be/BGtVT_Sn9Qo

Links:

Hope you enjoy the episode and thanks for listening! Visit the SPC website at https://studentpilotcast.com. Please keep the feedback coming. You can use the contact form on the website or send email to bill at student pilot cast dot com. The theme song for our episodes is "To Be an Angel" by the band, "Uncle Seth".

Legal Notice: Remember, any instruction that you hear in this podcast was meant for me and me alone in the situation that we happened to be in at the time. Please do not try to apply anything you see or hear in this episode or any other episode to your own flying. If you have questions about any aspect of your flying, please consult a qualified CFI.

Copyright 2008-2024, studentpilotcast.com and Bill Williams

Transcript
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Are you ready for a logging extravaganza that we'll have you check in your log

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book for accuracy while learning how to really understand the regs around logging.

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Then you're going to love today's episode of the student pilot cast.

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Logging for mere mortals.

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Welcome back SPC listeners.

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I'm pumped to be back with a special episode of the student pilot cast during

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one of our recent recording sessions for beyond the check ride segment.

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Kent.

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And I realize that we had done one that went way beyond an hour.

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As we dove into a bunch of areas of logging.

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Clearly.

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We could have broken that topic up into smaller bite sized pieces.

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But because we're either lazy, too busy, or we just love talking about flying, even

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when it's mostly about the regulations we decided to just let it ride.

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Now I did manage to edit it down to just over an hour, but that's still too long.

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To have it as just a segment.

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So we'll forgo the training flight today.

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To get this valuable information out.

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Hope you enjoy it.

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And also that you get some good information out of it.

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We've already discussed some limitations that we didn't know about

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in ForeFlight since we recorded this.

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We cover briefly how to do some of the logging and how you can do some

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of it in ForeFlight it wasn't mostly about ForeFlight it's mostly about, you

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know, how you logged no matter how you do it, but we did mention ForeFlight

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and showed ForeFlight a little bit.

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If you're looking at the video version of this, so.

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See, if you can run across anything like that.

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And let us know about it.

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And we may do a follow-up to talk about that as well.

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Even better though.

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What did we forget?

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Or what did we get wrong?

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In this beyond the checkride segment.

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Uh, reach out to us via email@billatstudentpilotcast.com or you

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can use the contact form on the website if you prefer, but reach out to us and

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let us know your, take your stories or anything that you think we may have

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gotten wrong or should have said better.

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By the way.

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The video version of this segment is already published on YouTube.

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Uh, published it a little bit earlier.

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Today.

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And you might want to go check that out in this case because

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Kent will be sharing some visuals.

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To help go through the regs as, as well as some of the interpretations and as

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well as using ForeFlight a little bit, like I said, so the video version of

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this could actually prove pretty helpful.

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You can go to our YouTube channel to.

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Find it it's at youtube.com/at student pilot cast.

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Or you can just search for student pilot cast or student

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pilot cast logging on YouTube.

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There'll also be a link in the show notes.

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So lots of ways to find the videos.

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So don't forget to go check it out.

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While you're there.

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Why don't you hit subscribe on our tiny fledgling YouTube channel as well.

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So, thanks for always listening and thanks for watching.

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And enjoy.

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So let's get right to it beyond the checkride.

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Logging flight time explained.

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All right.

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Welcome back everybody to another segment of beyond the check ride.

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I'm here again, as usual with Ken Shook.

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How you doing Kent?

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Excellent.

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Good.

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always a good day when I can talk about flying.

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Always is always is.

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So I know I introduced these segments, a few episodes ago, and we're

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going to continue to release those.

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As I said, as segments within the student pilot cast, but I wanted to make a comment

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on it today, just to kind of set the stage a little more for, you know, what

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these are all about, we certainly don't want to give the impression that these

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are, you know, sort of the gospel truth about how you do any of these things

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and they're certainly not comprehensive.

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In what we're covering, we're mostly wanting to bring these topics up because,

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uh, especially Kent and a little bit me, we've had some experience in aviation and,

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we've found some things that we've learned over time that certainly aren't in.

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The ACS or what used to be the PTS and they don't, they aren't required knowledge

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to get a certificate or a rating or, you know, things like that, but they

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are practically important knowledge.

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And these are things that we've learned since our check rides.

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And, we're kind of trying to bring up that question and

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disseminate the information so that.

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We can start a discussion in the overall community about these things.

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And so we always want to hear feedback.

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I know that we've harped on that quite a bit.

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We always want to get feedback from you.

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We want to hear stories about how you've learned things

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beyond your own check rides.

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And this is really to open up the conversation.

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We're going to talk about our experiences, our stories.

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the things that we've run into and so on, and we want everyone

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to add to that conversation.

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Anything to add to that, Kent?

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I just wanted to make sure we were setting the stage.

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Yeah, that sounds great.

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And, you know, I hope that eventually we'll have enough feedback that we can

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even have a, a segment within a segment where we go through feedback every time

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and, and talk about it a little more.

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Like I said, I like to talk about flying, so just a, another way to do

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it and to expand the size of our little circle around the fire at the hangar.

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Right.

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That's right.

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That's right.

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Cool.

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So with that being said, what topic have you got for us today?

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Well, this time, kind of the overarching thing will be the, uh, regulations.

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and within that we're going to look at one that I have seen so

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many online arguments and confusion about, and that is logging time.

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I'm, I'm sure you've seen an argument or two over that in your day.

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Oh, for sure.

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So, you know, over the years I've, I've actually gotten to the point where

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The regulations actually make sense to me, don't tell the FAA or they'll

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probably revoke my medical for being crazy or something like that, but, um,

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There's gotta be something wrong with you, right?

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yes, yes, and one of the people that I, I learned a lot from was a guy by the name

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of Ron Levy, who, uh, was a participant in many of those arguments ages ago, But

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he actually taught a class at a college.

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I can't remember where it was, but, he was out in Maryland.

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So somewhere out in that vicinity, he was, uh, a guy who taught a college class in

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aviation law, so knew what he was talking about, always backed up his statements.

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And then by following all the references that he provided, I

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learned a lot about it myself.

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So, I've learned from those online discussions that I've had quite a bit.

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really it's all about going and finding references for your position.

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And, so sometimes I will learn that I was right and sometimes

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I'll learn that I was wrong.

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And, um,

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It's all still learning, right?

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exactly.

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So what are some of the big, the big issues that, I mean, the obvious one is,

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you know, logging PIC when you're doing instrument practice, but we'll get it.

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We'll hold off on that one for a second.

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Hopefully, are there any other big logging issues that you run into?

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Well, there's a couple.

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There is the can more than one person log PIC at the same time, or even

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log the time at all at the same time.

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The other one is Okay, I'm going up with an instructor, and I'm

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getting my complex endorsement.

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How do I log that?

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So I

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Right?

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Right?

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Can you, can you log PIC when you don't have, a high performance

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endorsement, for example, or.

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Sure.

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Something along those lines in a high performance.

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Yeah.

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Okay.

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Good question.

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I think I know the answer to that

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actually,

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the, the first thing here is, don't try to make it make sense.

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If you try to make it make sense, right off the bat, you'll say, what on earth

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is going on, and it won't make any sense.

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So,

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federal regulations after

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yes, yes, if you sit back and wait until the end, hopefully by the time we're

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done tonight, then it will make sense.

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so the, I mean, the first.

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thing to understand is that to the FAA, logging PIC Being the PIC

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are completely separate things.

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when I say being the PIC, we'll also use the term acting as the PIC.

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That doesn't mean acting like you're not really a acting PIC as the

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person who is being or acting as the pilot in command of the aircraft.

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There is always one and only one pilot in command of an aircraft, period.

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End of story.

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However, there are times when you can have, I'll put an asterisk

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on the first one here, but zero up to three people logging PIC.

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So, Don't let me forget that.

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We'll, uh, we'll cover what those are here at the end, and

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it'll make a little more sense.

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so first thing, let's talk about how you can look this stuff up on your own.

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And in fact, I will see if I could share my screen here.

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All right.

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So here in my browser window, you'll see, we have gone to ecfr.

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gov.

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So electronic code of federal regulations.

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And what we're looking for here is title 14 aeronautics and space.

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So let's click on that.

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And this is an awful lot of stuff because this is everything dealing with the

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FAA and NASA and all kinds of things.

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So.

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Pretty much everything that you're going to want in terms of aviation

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regulations is going to be in this first chapter here, Chapter 1.

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So I'll expand that.

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And for logging stuff, One of the things that you should have learned right away

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as a student pilot is that anything that depends on who the pilot is, is 61.

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And then general operating rules are Part 91, so.

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Let's go to Subchapter D here, where Part 61 is.

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Now, there's a difference between whether you click on

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Part 61 or the title over here.

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So if you click on the left, you'll get the Table of Contents.

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If you click on the right, you'll get the entire part.

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And that is generally what I do, so let's go ahead and do that.

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So here we go.

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This is part 61.

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Everything in part 61.

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Now, I happen to know that it's 6151 is what we're looking for.

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But, you can also just do a quick find for logging.

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So, you can see C, D, and E there.

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I'm going to scroll back up.

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So, there we go.

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6151, Pilot Logbooks.

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So which questions shall we address first here?

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well, let's do the scenario where let's say you just got your private

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pilot certificate and you want to add on something like a complex

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or high performance endorsement.

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Yep.

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That's a good one.

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Good, simple one.

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now this is all, we're talking PIC right now.

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So 6151E is where we talk about PIC.

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So logging pilot and command flight time.

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A sport, recreational, private, commercial or airline transport pilot may log

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pilot in command time for flights.

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And this is the one that really matters here right off the bat, except

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when logging flight time under 61 1 59 C, when the pilot is the sole

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manipulator of the controls of an aircraft for which the pilot is rated

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or has sport pilot privileges for that category and class of aircraft if the

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aircraft class rating is appropriate.

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So.

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That's a mouthful.

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let's pick that apart.

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So, except when logging flight time under 61159C.

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I happen to know that that is all about the, what's called a second in command

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professional development program.

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So, that's something that Part 135 operators can use, if

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they have the op spec for it.

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and it, changes things a little bit.

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So if you're part of one of those SIC PDPs, kind of skip everything we're

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going to tell you because the SIC PDP takes precedence over basically

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all of the other logging rules.

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Now, if you don't already know that, well, what do you need to do?

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You need to go and look at what 61159C says.

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So let's go ahead and click on that and do that.

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And you can see when you click on it, this website highlights the section.

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A commercial pilot may log second in command pilot time toward the aeronautical

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experience requirements of paragraph A of this section, blah, blah, blah.

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Employed by a part one 19 certificate holder.

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Authorized to conduct operations under part 135 of this chapter,

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et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

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So none of that is applicable to the scenario that we're in here.

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So, you don't need to read.

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These little subsections at all.

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this just simply isn't applicable.

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so that whole exception that you read in a 6151E, it just doesn't

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pertain to our scenario anymore.

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They're not, uh, they're not in one of those.

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programs.

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exactly.

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So now I need to find it again.

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Okay.

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So here we are.

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6151 E.

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So this exception here.

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does not apply.

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Now let's pick apart the rest of this.

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There's this or, or has sport pilot privileges, blah, blah, blah.

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We're talking about somebody who just got their private pilot certificate.

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So that means this whole section is irrelevant as well.

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Yep.

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Skip on

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So what that means is that effectively our person who is just a private pilot,

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you know, they're, they're working on some flight training all under part 91.

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So, When the pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls of an

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aircraft for which the pilot is rated.

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Uh, Oh, what does that mean?

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Here's something that you'll find throughout the regulations.

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They don't leave a whole lot of ambiguity in the regulations.

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So let's Let's see if we can find out, what does rated mean?

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And where we find that is you can always kind of peel the onion on this stuff.

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So, definitions relative to part 61.

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only are always going to be up in 61.

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1.

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So if we scroll way back up to the top, it actually isn't completely

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at the top because there are a couple of special federal aviation

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regulations up here, but here we go.

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Applicability and definitions.

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That's what you'll find at in the 0.

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1 of pretty much every part.

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So what we want to look up here is look up rated or rating.

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It's not here, right?

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So next, let's peel the onion.

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Let's go out to Subchapter D, Airmen.

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Well, nothing really there, because the first part in Subchapter D is this

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flight simulation training device, etc.

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That's not really applicable.

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So, peel the onion again.

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And you know, I must have clicked on something there that I didn't

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really mean to because this is what I wanted to be able to see.

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We're going to back all the way out to Part 1.

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Definitions and Abbreviations.

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And this is applicable to all of the regulations.

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So now let's go down We're looking for rated or rating now.

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Let me, okay, public aircraft, you can see some of this is OEI power.

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Yeah, a lot of, a lot of this stuff is just stuff that is.

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Probably in the certification regulations, but right here rating means a statement

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that is part of a certificate sets forth special conditions privileges or

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limitations so Rating in the context of are you rated for an aircraft?

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means something that is part of a certificate your pilot certificate When

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you get your complex endorsement, is it printed on your pilot certificate?

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Nope, and it's it's kind of you know, they give it away in the naming

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of You know complex endorsement.

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Yeah.

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It's an endorsement.

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It's not a rating

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yep.

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So the things that get printed on your pilot certificate like Airplane

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Single Engine Land or Instrument Airplane, those are ratings and

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the endorsements are not ratings.

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So, now that we've figured out what the rating part means, let's

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jump back here into Part 61.

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Gonna have to scroll down again.

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Okay, so the way we read this now is, we can pretty much start right here.

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Logging in pilot in command flight time.

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A, we're going to skip over the stuff that's irrelevant.

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Private pilot may log pilot in command flight time for flights when the pilot is

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the sole manipulator of the controls of an aircraft for which the pilot is rated.

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Now, is any of this other stuff even relevant at this point?

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Here's how we check that.

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So, you can see we've got these little i's, uh, you know, basically

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small roman numerals here,

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and at the end of every one we've got a semicolon, except for,

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before this last one, number four, Look at this word right here.

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It's an OR.

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As long as that is an OR, that means you only have to satisfy

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one of those sub conditions.

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So that's it.

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We've told the story now.

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We are able to log that flight time.

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So hopefully that, uh, that makes sense.

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Yeah, for sure.

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I will tell you there's another thing that you can look up and

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this is my don't argue with me I've been arguing about this subject

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for way longer than a lot of people

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But this is this is also something that is a really good reference So

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it's not at an easy URL like ecfr.

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gov.

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So I always just Google search for search FAA chief counsel not counsel like a

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group of leaders but counsel as in lawyers C O U N S E L Interpretations, and you

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can see it was actually, it was coming up before I even finished there, but,

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okay.

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So, interpretation search.

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Now what we can do is we can put in a keyword, and you can type in something

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like PIC or log or, you know, the problem is you'll get a lot of results on those.

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So one thing that's easy to search for is just search for the

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regulation that you're looking for.

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So let's do 6151E

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and that got it down to two pages.

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So, uh, oh no, two results.

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Now this one, the Herman interpretation, was actually requested by a

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friend of mine, Jason Herman.

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In fact, he was on an episode of the pilot cast quite a while ago.

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I

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So, Hey, Jason, if you're listening out there, hope you're doing well.

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what you'll see is you'll see these letters that are written from the

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FAA to the people who request these interpretations and anybody can do that.

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So, it says he requested clarification concerning the logging of pilot in

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command flight time under 14 CFR 6151E for flights conducted in complex

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and or high performance airplanes.

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Sounds like the question that we were just looking at, right?

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Your letter presents a scenario in which a pilot who holds a private pilot

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certificate with an aircraft single engine land rating but does not have

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endorsements for high performance or complex airplanes required by

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14 CFR 6131ENF to act as a PIC.

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Note the word act again that we talked about earlier is flying in a high

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performance and complex airplane.

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Another pilot who has those endorsements is acting as the PIC for the flight.

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Your letter asks whether the pilot lacking the endorsements may log PIC

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time for the time that the pilot is the sole manipulator of the controls.

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Does that wording sound familiar?

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Yes, it does.

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Your letter also asks a similar question in the context of a pilot

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lacking these endorsements logging PIC time during a training flight.

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The response that follows applies to either scenario because the regulations

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that govern the logging of PIC time whenever a pilot is the sole manipulator

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of the controls of an aircraft.

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So, whether you are getting instruction or just flying around with a friend.

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Doesn't matter.

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Yep.

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So section 50, 6151E governs the logging of PIC time and states and relevant park

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that a sport recreational blah blah blah.

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I'm not going to reread the whole, the whole thing there, but it does

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say right here, the term rated as used in section 6151E refers to the pilot

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holding the appropriate aircraft ratings.

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Category, class, and type, if a type rating is required, and these

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ratings are listed in 615 and placed on the pilot certificate.

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And then it references another interpretation, 6131 ENF established

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additional training and endorsement requirements before acting.

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As PIC of a complex or high performance airplane, respectively.

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Although these endorsements are required before a pilot may act as PIC, they are

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not required to log PIC time if the pilot is rated for and is the sole manipulator

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of the controls of the aircraft.

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So you're hearing a lot of those same words again.

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You know, they're, they're being very clear about, you know, rated and sole

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manipulator and all that kind of stuff.

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But here's where the whole don't ask it to make sense thing comes in and the

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difference between logging and acting.

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There is a distinction between logging PIC time and acting as a PIC.

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For a pilot to log PIC time, i.

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e.

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sole manipulator of the controls, a pilot must be properly rated in the

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aircraft by having the appropriate category, class, and type ratings.

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For a pilot to Act as a PIC, i.

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e.

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the pilot who has final authority and responsibility for the operation and

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safety of flight, and you'll hear those words in, uh, 61 3 and, a bunch of

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other places in the regulations as well.

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Pilot must be properly rated in the aircraft and be properly rated and

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authorized to conduct the flight.

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So,

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in your example, being properly rated and authorized would

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include having the endorsements for complex and high performance

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airplanes as required by 6131 ENF.

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Accordingly, in your examples, the pilot may log PIC time if that pilot

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is properly rated for the aircraft even though that pilot does not have the

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required endorsements to act as a PIC.

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So, basically, that's the letter from the FAA that says all that stuff

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that I just said before is true.

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Yep.

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Yep, exactly.

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I

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So, when you do have a question about stuff like that, it's, it's really a

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good idea to go and search those FAA interpretations because, uh, There are

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certain times where something isn't necessarily clear to a layman, and it's

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always good to see what the lawyers at the FAA have determined is, you know,

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the real meaning of the regulation.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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I actually have a quick story where this is very relevant.

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A few weeks ago, a friend of ours, took us on a flight in his great little arrow

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that he owns with a few other people.

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we went up for breakfast one Saturday morning for, up to the high country and

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Payson and Merrick, My middle son, who is a private pilot working on some of his

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other ratings, he does not have a complex endorsement and an arrow is a complex

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airplane, but he flew for, you know, 0.

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5 or 0.

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6, because our friend, allowed him to, you know, fly the airplane and get

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a feel for it on our way back down.

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And, when we got back, I said, you know, you can.

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You can log that 0.

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5 or 0.

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6, however long you were.

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So a manipulator of the controls and, he goes, yeah, but I don't have it.

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And I explained this to him, so that, you know, he, he was able to log that time

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because he is time building right now.

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He is trying to gain experience and get time.

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So.

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The interesting thing about that is technically that is a, so

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I've got a follow up question for you based on that scenario.

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I told you I was going to throw some curveballs at you.

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So, even though that that airport was more than 50 miles away, can he now log

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that as cross country time, even though he did not do the takeoff and landing?

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So you're wondering what he can log,

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He can log PIC,

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but can he log it as PIC cross country?

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And that took a little digging for us to figure out.

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Yep.

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So Now, I believe, let me go back to the interpretation search here, and

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I don't know why, but I know all the people who ask these dumb questions.

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They aren't actually dumb questions.

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I'll, I'll say that, but, okay, Van Zanen.

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Alright, so, you know, one thing I'm going to do first is go back to

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our definitions here at the top of part 61.

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because that should give us a clue what this interpretation is going to say.

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So what is the definition of cross country?

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Let me ask you that, Bill.

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What's the definition of cross country?

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Well, it, it, it depends on why you're logging it.

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So that's the important thing is if you're logging it for experience

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requirements to obtain other ratings, then there are definitions, based on

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that, if you're logging it, because you want a record of your flying, then

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that's a different standard, right?

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And that really means going from one place to another.

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Anywhere that would be a cross country.

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But if you want to use it for, for example, experience requirements for

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getting an instrument rating or for getting a commercial certificate, then

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it has to meet certain requirements.

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And the standard requirements for cross country for most of those

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certificates, has a definition.

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yes.

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Now, let me show you what the basic definition is here.

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Cross country time means, except as provided in paragraphs two through

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five, or two through six, rather,

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Time acquired during flight conducted by a person who holds a pilot certificate

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in an aircraft that includes landing at a point other than the point of departure

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and that involves the use of dead reckoning, pilotage, electronic navigation

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aids, radio aids, or other navigation systems to navigate to the landing point.

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So.

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No mileage requirements, no, you know, specific requirements, but there is

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we'll pause there.

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So the, the two through six, if we look at those two is for the purpose

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of meeting aeronautical experience requirements, except for rotorcraft

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for a private pilot certificate.

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And then you'll see, here's the 50 nautical mile requirement

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that people are talking about.

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for a sport pilot.

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I did want it to go back to, what you read as the basic definition.

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it it does say landing,

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Yes.

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Landing at the airport.

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And so as soon

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is the key.

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yep, as soon as we got to that point, then it was clear that my son could

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not log that as PIC cross country time.

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Because it wasn't even, he didn't even perform a cross country flight

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because he was missing a key element.

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And that's the landing at a place that was different than the part of

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departure than the point of departure.

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I should, I should

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say,

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Exactly.

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but then those other criteria come into play.

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But in this case, they're irrelevant because he's already

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been disqualified from being able to

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Right.

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And yeah, these are basically for all the different types of pilot certificate.

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Now, I have a suggestion.

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This has no legal basis whatsoever.

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It's just, making it easier for people.

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So, If you want to, you can certainly mark down any flight where the takeoff and

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landing are at different places as cross country right from the very beginning.

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However, when you're working on your Private pilot certificate, your instrument

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rating, and your commercial, those all have the 50 nautical mile requirement.

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And you're going to have to total up the greater than 50 nautical

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mile cross country for filling out your, forms that you fill out to

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apply for the new pilot certificate

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Oh

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for the checkride.

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Used to be form 8710 when it was on paper, but Yeah, whatever

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the electronic equivalent is.

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IACRA, I

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think.

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IACRA

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Um, so, yeah, to make it easy to fill out your IACRA, don't bother

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logging the shorter stuff early

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on.

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It's just gonna make your calculations more difficult.

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yeah.

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So, I think generally after the commercial, as long as you have

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that landing elsewhere, you're good.

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so if we scroll down here just a little ways,

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number six here.

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For the ATP certificate, it's straight line distance, more than 50 nautical miles

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from the original point of departure.

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And that involves the use of dead reckoning, pilotage,

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electronic, blah, blah, blah.

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So the ATPs don't even have to land somewhere else.

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Right.

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that said that has to be more than 50.

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So I guess until you have the ATP, it's worth logging only that greater than 50.

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Now, after that.

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Nothing really matters anymore.

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Yeah, log whatever you

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you can, you can log it all at that point.

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Yeah.

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Excellent.

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Well, uh, we didn't even pre plan that, but that, little personal story

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kinda helped illustrate how you can get into a rat hole, and then you're

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demonstrating perfectly how you can unravel all of these things, peel the

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onion, and get down to the bottom of it.

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So, that's good stuff.

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So this particular letter of interpretation, I'm not going to read

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the whole thing out, but basically what it says is that If you have three

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airports, A, B, and C, and none of them are more than 50 nautical miles from

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your home base, which is airport A, but airports B and C have more than 50

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nautical miles between them, and you fly A to B to C back to A, Because B

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and C have 50 nautical miles between them, if you log your flight from A to

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B, separately from your flight from B to C to A, you can log the B to C to A

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flight as cross country, and then not log the A to B flight as cross country, they

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just call that a repositioning flight.

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And so, it kind of seems to go a little bit against the spirit of the regulations,

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But, that's one of those questions where,

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uh, a lot of people ask, like, does each leg have to be more than 50 nautical

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miles, and that sort of thing, and it doesn't, like, you know, if you're working

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on your private pilot certificate, and you want to, hop to 10 different airports,

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none of which is more than, 10 miles away from the last one, as long as one of those

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airports is greater than 50 nautical miles from your point of origin, you're good.

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Alright,

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I've got it.

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I've got a couple, I know we've got some more scenarios, but if we could

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step away from the regs a little bit, give everybody's brain a little bit

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of a break, I've got a convention or maybe a suggestion, question for you.

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And this is a real scenario that's been coming up for me lately.

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As most folks know, I'm, I've been working on my CFI.

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I'm having a hard time.

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I'm ready for my check ride, but I'm having a hard time getting

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that check ride scheduled.

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So it's kind of dragging on for a while.

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This is not an uncommon problem these days.

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So, I'm doing all kinds of flying and a lot of the flying I'm doing, of

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course, I'm doing it from the right seat to continue to get more comfortable.

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And I'm taking my kids and anybody who's willing to be a Guinea pig and

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I'm teaching them things about flying.

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and so I've had the opportunity recently, for example, to take my son, who was

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already a private pilot and introduce him to some of the commercial maneuvers,

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acting as if I'm in his instructor, of course, in this case, I haven't done

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my checkride, so I'm not a CFI yet, so we can't log it as dual, but I can

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certainly teach him, demonstrate the maneuver, let him try the maneuver, you

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know, those sorts of things, and give him feedback and act like I'm an instructor.

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And so that's what I've been doing.

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Now in that case, because he's not logging dual and I'm not logging

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dual given, I, I am acting as PIC.

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But unless I'm demonstrating or doing the landing or something like that.

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I'm not able to log PIC time because he's logging PIC time as the

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sole manipulator of the controls.

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He's rated for the aircraft.

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So he, he can log that PIC time.

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Therefore I can't.

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so that's been an interesting thing.

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So I've got a question for you on how you might fill out

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a log book in this situation.

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So most log books have A column that says, I've got my log book

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open, so I'm going to be glancing at it says total duration of flight.

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And this goes to the scenario I was talking about earlier when we went

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with a friend, flew to breakfast and Merrick flew for part of it, I flew

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for part of it on the other direction.

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so what would you put, in the total duration of flight there?

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Would you put the amount of time you're logging PIC where you were

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the sole manipulator, the controls.

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Or would you put the total duration of the whole flight?

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what I would put in there is

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the total loggable duration of the flight.

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Um, and I actually have something in our notes here about

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things you can't log as well.

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loggable loggable for you.

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Is that what you're saying?

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correct.

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So,

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it would Matt.

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In other words, you would fill it

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out.

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You would fill it out.

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So it matches your PIC time in this scenario that I'm giving.

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Yes.

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So, there are really two kinds of total time.

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There's total flight time and there's total pilot time.

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The only difference between them is simulator time.

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So, essentially, total flight time, which is in an aircraft, off the

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ground, plus your simulator time would be your total pilot time.

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so, you know, you can choose for your own convention, you know, I have a,

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ground trainer, column in my log book.

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Um, some would call that simulator.

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but you know, you can choose whether total duration of flight

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is pilot time or flight time.

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Just because the word is flight, I have chosen to log flight time in that column.

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And so if someone asks for total pilot time, including simulator, in

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fact, I've got a, an entry right here where you can, um, Maybe see that.

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You can see on that second line there, I have nothing in total

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flight time because I logged it over here on the simulator column.

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So, that's that.

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Now, you probably are only putting in like a tenth or two of loggable

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time demonstrating maneuvers, right?

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Yeah, we did like a 1.

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2 and because I'm also practicing demonstrating, I got 0.

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3.

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Okay.

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So I calculated how much time I was sole manipulator of the controls and logged 0.

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3 on this particular flight of PIC and he logged the rest of it as PIC.

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I also did the, the takeoff and landing.

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So, that was additional, part of my 0.

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3.

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Yeah, so, I know that there are some people who will say things

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like, Well, it's your logbook.

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You can log whatever you want.

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And while that is true,

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um, to some extent, it also, you don't want to make it look like you're lying,

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you know, whether you end up applying for a job someday or you're having

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a chat with the FAA, maybe after a ramp check, maybe after an accident,

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hopefully not, but you know, if you have all this stuff in your logbook,

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And you have been logging time given the columns that are in most logbooks.

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Eh, that's going to be a pretty uncomfortable conversation.

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Well, why did you log this time in the 747 when clearly you're not rated for it?

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Yeah.

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Well, I like to log passenger time too.

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Well, yeah, don't put that in total time though.

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So,

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Well, there's another column to, same question.

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I think your answer is going to be pretty obvious, but there's another

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column for, you know, in this case, airplane single engine land.

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So category and class.

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So again, it sounds like you would log just the amount of time that

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matches what you're able to log as PIC since you're rated in it.

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yes.

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And then, because, you know, Single probably doesn't matter that much,

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but you probably right next to that have an airplane multi engine land

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column and that one is going to matter.

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you will be asked about that for insurance paperwork and for applying

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for jobs and all that kind of stuff.

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So in both of those cases, if you have a flight that you would like to put

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into your logbook for memory purposes, let's call it, you know, it's a

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flight that you want to remember and.

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Frankly, there are times when you, are getting some value from a flight,

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even if you can't necessarily log it.

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Yeah.

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and so in those cases, if you want to put something like that

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in your logbook, does your logbook have some blank columns in it?

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Um, it does.

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Yep.

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And I've written in things like, um, complex and high performance, things like

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that, that allow me to keep track of that.

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yeah.

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So, you know, looking in my logbook here, I've got single engine

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land, multi engine land, blank.

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Helicopter, as flight instructor, um,

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Yep.

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and the rest of them, I would probably actually use.

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So what I would suggest, and I, I didn't start doing this

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until actually very recently.

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I was working for a flight instructor.

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Part 135 operator, and I was only able to log maybe half of my time or so

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because we were flying single pilot airplanes and Any time that we were

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on a part 91 leg or if we were on a part 135 leg without passengers on

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board There's no method for me to be able to log PIC or really log anything

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and so I decided that What I would be doing with that is logging it under

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a new column that I call seat time.

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So if I was the pilot monitoring, not the pilot flying, and I was not acting

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as pilot in command of a 135 leg, then I would just log it as seat time.

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So my total time would be zero, cross country zero, landing zero,

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you know, all that stuff, but seat time, I would put that in.

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So, in your case, you could log 1.

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2 of seat time and 0.

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3 of PIC, for example.

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So,

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Right, right.

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I just, that's, I feel like that is a method to make it very clear

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that, hey, this is, this is time that wasn't necessarily loggable that

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I just wanted to have a record of.

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Very interesting.

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So yeah, we got a, got a little away from the regulations and more about

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convention and kind of best practices.

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But, but I thought that would be valuable as well.

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Along those same lines, Kent, what about in a situation where you

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hand the controls, over to a buddy who's not a rated pilot at all?

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So that is the zero asterisk I was talking about at the top, because guess what?

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You just handed the controls over.

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You're no longer the sole manipulator, right?

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Yep.

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But your buddy is not rated.

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And can't log it either.

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Zero pilots logging PIC.

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it.

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Right.

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Yep.

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But here's the asterisk.

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Someone asked for an interpretation on that one.

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And the FAA said.

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You know, in that instance, it's okay if you log it, even if you're not the, truly

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the sole manipulator of the controls.

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So, I don't have that interpretation handy here,

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but,

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it, it's almost like saying, let's not leave PIC time on the table.

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kind of, but yeah, I think that the, the FAA is view there was, well, in reality,

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you are still in control of the airplane.

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So we'll, uh, we'll let you have that one.

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And as long as we're on the subject, Let's talk about just the few

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different ways that you can log time.

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Let me go back to 6151 one last time here, hopefully.

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Alright, 6151E again here.

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we're going to just quickly tick off the boxes that will

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let you log something as PIC.

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So we've already talked about the sole manipulator rule a bunch.

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Number two here, when the pilot is the sole occupant in the aircraft.

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So student solo, that's the first time that you can log PIC because

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if you are the sole occupant of the aircraft, You don't have to be rated.

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so I guess technically, what did they call that kid?

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Uh, the, the barefoot bandit, I think,

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who for a while there was running around the country, stealing airplanes.

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Mostly the Pacific Northwest, Northwest, Right.

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Yeah.

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Technically he could lock it.

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Yeah.

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Uh,

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that's

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ever going to let him have a pilot certificate, but that's beside the point.

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So, third one here, and this is the one, that is important for, for the

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scenario where you have two people logging PIC, uh, where one is being

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the safety pilot for the other.

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So, number three, when the pilot, except for a holder of a sport or

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recreational pilot certificate, acts as pilot in command of an aircraft

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for which more than one pilot is required under the type certification

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of the aircraft or the regulations under which the flight is conducted.

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So, that covers a bunch of scenarios.

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If you are an airline pilot or, any sort of pilot where the aircraft

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requires two pilots, then, That's the part where it says where more

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than one pilot is required under the type certification of the aircraft.

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Now, I mentioned a minute ago flying under Part 135.

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So, it says, or the regulations under which the flight is conducted.

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So, in the particular

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including your

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where I was working.

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right.

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For a one 35.

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right.

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So, in Part 135, it specifically says that Two pilots are required on any

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leg with paying passengers on board.

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There is an exception to that, that some carriers have, and it's just

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called generally the autopilot in lieu exception, where if you have

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a functioning three axis autopilot, you don't need that second pilot.

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You do have to have Ops specs that allow your operation to

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use that autopilot and lube.

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And we just specifically did not get that ops spec because

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that's not how we operated.

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We always did everything with two pilots.

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I was able to log legs where I was not the pilot flying.

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Um, as long as we had passengers on board, if I was the acting pilot in command.

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so those are the only two scenarios where the acting pilot in command

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could Gets to log it just by virtue of being the acting pilot in command.

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But if you were not the.

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Not acting as pilot in command and it was not your leg to fly.

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So you were not the sole manipulator of the controls.

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Then you're not logging PIC.

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Correct.

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There are no boxes I can tick at that point.

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In fact, I couldn't log anything.

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So, And man, there's there's so many little Sub scenarios you can start

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to get in off of these regulations.

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It's it gets kind of crazy.

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we'll leave those for future.

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Yes, in fact, we would love feedback if you have questions

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on whether you can log something.

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I guess while we're on the subject, well, we'll come back to that in just a minute.

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There is one more, well, there's this number four, which is more

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involved in, uh, training flights and, there's an ATP one down here.

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So, um, if you are an ATP acting as pilot in command of an operation

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requiring an ATP certificate.

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You get to log it then.

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Which is also kind of covered by that one we were talking about a minute ago.

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But this is the one that I really wanted to jump down to is 6151E3.

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A Certificated Flight Instructor may log pilot in command flight time for

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all flight time while serving as the authorized instructor in an operation,

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if the instructor is rated to act as pilot in command of that aircraft.

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So, There's plenty of situations where, you can have people logging,

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two people logging PIC if one of them is acting as an instructor.

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Well, if you're, if you're giving instruction, then you

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are required crew at that point.

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So

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So let's talk about the good ol safety pilot thing.

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The way that you can get two pilots logging PIC at the

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same time, and you're not.

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a professional pilot.

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That's, that's the scenario we're talking about.

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yeah,

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The safety pilot, if the safety pilot is the acting PIC, and this is

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important, the safety pilot must be the acting PIC for both pilots to log PIC.

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The safety pilot does not have to be the PIC to log it, period.

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So.

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Pay attention to who is the PIC and is responsible for the flight

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because the safety pilot may be logging either PIC or SIC.

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and you know, it's more than just regulations that goes into that.

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So, let's say you and I go flying in my airplane

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and, you know, I'm, I'm.

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Under the hood and you're my safety pilot.

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Well, are you on my insurance?

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I'm

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not

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one reason why, you know?

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Right.

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So in that case, I'm gonna want to be the PIC because let's say I

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gear the thing up or something like that, and then you are the PIC.

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Well, now the insurance is gonna deny that claim.

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another thing would be, I was just thinking through the, uh, endorsements.

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So, my Mooney is both complex and high performance.

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You CANNOT act as PIC.

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on my airplane if you don't have those endorsements,

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so, um,

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Yeah.

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so those are a couple things to think about.

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yeah.

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You have to, you have to be qualified.

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You have to be qualified to act as PIC in that airplane, obviously, to act as PIC.

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correct.

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So if it's not an airplane that you can go and fly by yourself, then you should not,

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That includes, that include, I wanna bring this up too.

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That includes medicals.

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Yes,

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So you, you, have to have.

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All of the requirements to act as PIC, like you said, Kent, if

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you can't fly that airplane by yourself, you can't act as PIC.

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yeah.

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Now, a medical is required, Yeah.

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To be the safety pilot anyway, because you're still a required crew member.

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medicals are not just required for PICs.

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I should say, though, that BasicMed now does qualify.

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For quite a while after the BasicMed rule first came out,

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you had to have a legit medical certificate.

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It was, it was just due to the way that Congress wrote the law requiring the

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FAA to do BasicMed in the first place.

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They had not addressed that scenario, and the FAA had been dragging their feet

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on that whole idea for the longest time.

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And so they literally wrote the regulation exactly as Congress

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made them, and nothing else.

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And that was probably the most glaring issue with the whole thing was that, okay,

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now there's this whole scenario where I can fly the plane myself, but I can't sit

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in the right seat and look for traffic.

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Right,

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But yeah, they did finally address that more recently.

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So

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Did they address that with a regulation change or did they

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address it with an interpretation?

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that was

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a regulation change.

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So technically an interpretation of An interpretation is

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never changing a regulation.

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It is

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merely

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a

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but they can be

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of what the regulation means.

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uh, regulation can be ambiguous enough that it, it has the same effect though.

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Yeah, to an extent.

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but yeah, this particular one, it, it was not ambiguous at all.

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It, it said, yeah, you need to have a medical.

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it was really the, uh, The basic med rule didn't say that there was that exception.

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So

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Right.

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anyway, I don't want to get too far into the whole medical issue, but yes,

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to act as pilot in command, you need.

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everything.

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You need the endorsements, you need the medical, you need all that stuff.

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So, I think that that, you know, if you, if you can't fly the airplane on your

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own with friends in the back seat, you're also not qualified to be the acting P.

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I.

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C.

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That isn't to say that you can't be the safety pilot.

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But, we've covered a couple scenarios here with, insurance and endorsements and

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all that kind of stuff that you should be aware of, and you should also agree before

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the flight who the PIC is going to be so that there's no ambiguity there at all.

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You need to know who is in command of that flight.

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Right.

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so, all that said, Let's say you are the acting PIC safety pilot.

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Now we're coming down here to 6151E13 when the pilot, except for

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sport and recreational, acts as pilot in command of an aircraft.

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And I'm going to skip over the multi pilot aircraft.

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One's, section of this here, an aircraft under which, or for which more than one

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pilot is required under the regulations under which the flight is conducted.

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So, there is a regulation, I can't remember the number right now.

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offhand, but there is a regulation that requires a safety pilot when

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you're wearing a view limiting device.

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I'll put it up on the screen right

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that is the regulation under which the pilot is, or under

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which the flight is conducted.

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So let's drop down real quick to 6151F, logging of second in command flight time.

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right.

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That's just what I was going to ask.

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Because if you're the safety pilot and you cannot be the acting PIC,

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you may still log the time, it will just be second in command time.

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So, 6151 F1 is talking about multi pilot aircraft.

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6151 F2 is the pertinent regulation here.

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So, starting up at the main text here, a person may log second in

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command time Um, only for that flight time during which the person holds

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the appropriate category, class, and instrument rating if an instrument

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rating is required for the flight.

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If it's in VMC, it doesn't require an instrument rating, right?

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For the aircraft being flown and more than one pilot is required

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under the type certification of the aircraft or the regulations under

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which the flight is being conducted.

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So again, There is that regulation saying that you need the safety pilot.

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So that is the regulations under which the flight is being conducted.

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And again, here you see this word or before the last subsection, you

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know, so at the end of number two, it says, or which means you only

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need to check one of these three.

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If any of those three are true, you're good.

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So

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cool.

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Very

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cool.

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Yeah.

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Oh, I do want to suggest one more thing.

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I talked about an extra column for seat time.

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I also have put in an extra column now for acting pilot in command time.

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And the only reason for that is there are certain airlines who Disagree with the

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FAA on what should be locked as PIC, but they are not the FAA, so I'm going to log

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in my logbook what the FAA says to do.

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But, I have seen instructions on airline applications that say, for pilot and

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command time, we want you to fill out Only the time where you were the

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acting pilot in command of the flight.

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So I have also added an acting PIC column.

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Have you gone back and?

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Filled it all out for pre your previous career.

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Yep, I

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have.

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It actually wasn't that hard.

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Well, so what I did is, I went through the aircraft that are in my logbook.

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And some aircraft, I know I was never the acting pilot in command.

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And some, you always were.

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friends who let me fly their planes and stuff like that, but they were

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always with me and that sort of stuff.

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there are some, aircraft for which I knew I was always the acting pilot in command.

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And then there were, you know, some aircraft where it

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could have been either or, so.

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I just automated the whole process and said, okay, we'll do a V look

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up here and check the tail number against the list here and just

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check on whether that aircraft was an always a never or a sometimes.

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And,

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um,

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interesting.

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And tell me how you've done that in, in your four flight log

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book, your electronic log book,

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so ForeFlight lets you put in, um, custom columns.

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Let me actually, uh, go to

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ForeFlight

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logbook here.

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All right.

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So under settings,

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You can see here, all of these ones at the top with checkboxes are columns

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that ForeFlight includes, and you can decide whether to display them or not.

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So you can see, for example, I don't have the night vision goggles checked,

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because I have never flown with night vision goggles, and probably won't.

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Um, yeah, sounds like it'd be kind of cool,

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right?

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that sounds pretty fun to

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me.

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Yeah, so you can see down at the bottom here, I have four custom fields.

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and then there's this little new field link, that you can click

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and just create a new field.

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Let's do that for the heck of it because I want to pull up the types you can do.

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You can do text, numeric, hours, counter, date, date and time, or toggle.

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So you can have just a Um, so those are the options for your, your custom

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field types, but you can have, as far as I know, they don't have a

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limit on the number of custom fields.

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but I would check on that if you're going to do

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A ton of

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them, uh, because there may be a limit.

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That would be hard to manage anyway.

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So I would stay away from that if you can.

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yeah, yeah.

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And one of the things that I did notice is when you have a custom field, you know,

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in ForeFlight, they always put the button.

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Once you fill in the total time, a lot of the other ones will have a little

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button that appears that says, use 1.

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5 or whatever you put in for the total time.

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The custom fields don't get that.

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So you do end up having to manually key it every time.

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Yeah.

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I was thinking you could almost make that column that when you were

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just talking about a toggle field.

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And if you ever had to, if you ever had to add up your total PIC where

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you were acting PIC, you could just look up the total duration of the

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flights where that was toggled on.

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yeah.

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you could, you could

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And let me show you how this looks too.

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Build my experience report here those custom fields.

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It does by aircraft type So this is for flight standard experience report And

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when you have the custom fields if you come down here to the bottom It shows

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each type of flying that I have in You know acting PIC part 135 and seat

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hours are all done by aircraft type.

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there is the totals at the bottom here.

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Very cool.

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but yeah, that's what that looks like.

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Excellent.

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Well, Kent, any other, um, last things you wanted to say about this vast topic?

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I think we have pretty well beat that one to death.

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Um, like I said, there are a bunch of little tiny exceptions and

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asterisks and stuff like that, that you can get into on this.

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And so, you know, Please don't automatically go and start logging

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everything as PIC just because you heard two random guys on a podcast tell you to.

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Make sure that you can actually back that up by reading the regulations

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that we've pointed you to, reading interpretations, and you know what?

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If you have a question, by all means send it in and we'd love to answer it.

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We, we like to do the research to call us crazy.

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Yes, we are that kind of crazy and please, FAA, don't take our medicals away.

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Heh heh heh heh heh heh.

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Excellent.

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Well, Kent, this, this was an awesome topic.

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Certainly needed.

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I know that there's always a lot of confusion about this.

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And a lot of this discussion helps me personally to wrap my head around

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some of these scenarios that pop up.

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When you get a lot more experience in your career, things are going to pop up.

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That you're thinking, Hmm, haven't seen this before.

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And so these are the types of things, especially showing people

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how to go find the regs to find the interpretations and kind of make

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their decisions based on those.

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So appreciate this great topic, great coverage of the topic.

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You never cease to amaze me on the depth of, of knowledge that

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you have on some of these things.

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So thank you very much.

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This was cool.

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Yeah, this was fun.

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It's always, uh, always fun to geek out about this stuff.

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All right, Kent.

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So we'll see you next time on, on beyond the check ride.

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Thanks again.

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Alright, we'll see ya.

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Okay, everyone.

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I hope you liked that topic as usual.

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And like I said before, As usual.

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And like I said before, we'd love to get feedback, comments,

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your own stories, all of it.

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So reach out to us.

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Logging is obviously a big topic.

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We didn't even cover it nearly comprehensively.

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And it took us over an hour.

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There is a lot of nuance and a lot of detail, but hopefully we covered

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the basics and the common scenarios that people get tripped up on.

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More importantly, Kent showed you how to figure it out for yourself, by diving

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into the rags and the interpretations.

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And so on.

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So, I guess it's time to get out there.

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And lug some more time.

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The Student Pilot Cast
Learning to fly...in front of the world. A Podcast about flight training.

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About your host

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Bill Williams

Bill is a papa, a pilot, a geek, a diver, a sailor, a motorcycle rider, and a podcaster. He brings a long if sometimes interrupted history with both aviation and podcasting, along with passion for both to his podcasts. Currently working on his CFI, Bill is dedicated to advancing his skills and sharing his love of flying with others.

Bill hosts the popular Student Pilot Cast where he shares his flight training with the world, bringing the listener into the cockpit and more frighteningly, into his head, to share in the triumphs and the defeats of perpetually learning the art and science of flying.

More recently Bill is also co-hosting the Flight Line Podcast with Tiffany Wolf as they reunite after having been co-hosts on the reborn Pilotcast podcast in the earlier days of aviation podcasting.