But, if only one of you is PIC, can you both log the hours? 
That's still fairly cheap.
Sometimes, I just can't help myself.
100/wet for an Aztec?! Nice. If I were multi rated (450 hours and I still haven't added MEL to my commercial certificate), I'd fly to Houston to split time with you.
It doesn't matter if you're in VMC or IMC -- the safety pilot is required any time the pilot flying is under the hood. But in that case, yes, both pilots can log it. If the safety pilot is also acting as PIC, they both log it as PIC time. If the safety pilot is only acting as SIC, it's still loggable SIC time for the safety pilot and PIC time for the pilot flying. Just remember the safety pilot can only log the time the pilot flying is hooded, and make sure you properly document just what you were doing. If the flight times in the two logbooks are the same, and the documentation is dodgy, you could end up like these two:
Read again -- it's $200/hr wet, split two ways.
That's still fairly cheap.
Not so. The "PNF" (pilot not flying, i.e., the safety pilot) must also be acting as PIC in addition to being the safety pilot in order to log PIC time. Otherwise, it's only SIC time for the safety pilot. And to act as PIC, the PNF must be fully qualified and current to do so, as well as accept responsibility for anything/everything that happens.
Bad briefing, because there is only one Pilot In Command (PIC) at a time. No such thing as "command PIC" vs "acting PIC" vs any other kind of PIC. There is one, and only one, person acting as PIC, and that is the one and only person who, to quote 14 CFR 1.1, "Has final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight." The issues of who may log PIC time are separete, and governed by 61.51, not 1.1. Please don't confuse people with sloppy semantics.
No, s/he won't. Figuring out who was really the PIC ex post facto when an accident or violation has occurred can be a tricky and litigious process.
I read it that way...$200 is still not bad for an Aztec.
Henning, please read what the OP wrote, what I wrote, and what that case says very carefully, and then compare that to the regs and various interpretations on point. If you're "splitting time" for $100/hr each, either you're doing it illegally (the OP does not seem to be an ME instructor) or somebody is paying for time they can't log, and then we run into "common purpose" and expense-sharing issues. Unless they are both CFI-AME's, and I don't think they are, they cannot legally "split" the time and the costs.
I find it takes most people more than six minutes from start-up to takeoff (often much more if they do the proper warm-up and instrument pretakeoff checks and set-up), so I put the clock on the time the trainee is hooded so there's no doubt.
It may be agreed on between you and the pilot with whom you are flying, but it is not at all "plain" to most others. Most folks who own their own aircraft don't like (and sometimes their insurer prohibits) others from acting as PIC when they're flying. In other cases, the safety pilot isn't even qualified to be PIC. And the fact that the safety pilot has some safety responsibilities does not in and of itself make the safety pilot the PIC -- responsbilities may be shared, but final authority may not.
If that's the agreement you obtain, that's fine, but it's by no means automatic, and generally not the way most folks do it in their own airplanes.
Violation of 61.59 is grounds for revocation of all certificates, and almost always results in that. "Unscrupulous" is merely a matter of personal opinion, and not grounds for FAA certificate action except for an ATP if they can show lack of moral character, which three people legally logging PIC time simultaneously ain't gonna do.
Yes. Quite a few schools do that or something like it, though more often for CFI training -- trainee pilot in the left seat, trainee instructor in the right seat, CFI in the back.
Common sense definitions and the FAA Chief Counsel's definitions are by no means universally congruent. Caveat aviator.
That takes care of start-up to takeoff. There's also takeoff to hood-on, hood-off to landing, and touchdown to stopping in the chocks. Your .3 may work most of the time, but I've seen plenty of days where the real hood time is 0.5 or more below Hobbs time, so YMMV. I just don't like "canned solutions" in cases like that -- it invites questions.
Luckily there isn't an FAA inspector sitting in the back seat to wack me for the extra 0.2 of hood time I logged...Arguing how an extra 0.1 to 0.2 of flight time is logged is kind of over doing it IMHO. I try to be as accurate as possible and will pick the more conservative number if I'm in doubt, but being 0.1 off is really not a big deal.
