Safety pilot requirements?

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4RNB

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4RNB
First off, I passed my checkride and am now a pilot! Thanks for advice along the way.

I've seen people refer to a safety pilot for IFR training and currency. If I were to ever ask for someone to be my safety pilot or if I were to be one in someone's plane, are there requirements that need to be met? For example, I thought I came across somewhere in my studies that I should not serve as a safety pilot in a complex aircraft.
 
https://pilotworkshop.com/tips/safety-pilot-requirements/

Your safety pilot doesn’t have to have complex or HP endorsements unless he/she is using BasicMed. In that case, said safety pilot must ACT as PIC (due to how BasicMed was written) and would need appropriate endorsements.


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interesting....here I thought the SP needed to be appropriately rated to "be" PIC if needed.

But my rules are that SP needs to have a great set of eye balls.....to keep us whole. I really don't care how many ratings the cat has.
 
This might be something I'm overthinking, but...not an FAA thing, it's a rental agreement thing: Being Safety Pilot can put me as PIC when the other pilot is under the hood. Some of the rental planes available to me require me to be checked out before I can be PIC. Maybe I am overly cautious in this, but there's that chance of a bird strike or something else happening when I am "logging PIC" in a plane in which I'm not checked out for rental or insurance purposes.
 
Matthew said:
This might be something I'm overthinking, but...not an FAA thing, it's a rental agreement thing: Being Safety Pilot can put me as PIC when the other pilot is under the hood. Some of the rental planes available to me require me to be checked out before I can be PIC. Maybe I am overly cautious in this, but there's that chance of a bird strike or something else happening when I am "logging PIC" in a plane in which I'm not checked out for rental or insurance purposes.
Click to expand...

You don’t have to BE PIC, to be safety pilot unless you’re BasicMed, agree to be with the pilot flying under the hood or HAVE to be because pilot flying under the hood is missing something to be able to ACT as PIC him/herself (-somebody- has to be PIC on a flight... )

Also, Logging PIC <> Acting as PIC. There are 1.2 million threads on that topic...


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crash7 said:
You don’t have to BE PIC, to be safety pilot unless you’re BasicMed, agree to be with the pilot flying under the hood or HAVE to be because pilot flying under the hood is missing something to be able to ACT as PIC him/herself (-somebody- has to be PIC on a flight... )

Also, Logging PIC <> Acting as PIC. There are 1.2 million threads on that topic...


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Yeah, I know. BM does require you to BE PIC. Logging PIC is different. But since this only comes up with me once every 3-4 years where I figure I'll LOG PIC as SP AND I'm in a plane I'm not checked out in to BE PIC, it's always something that pops into my head. As I said, I'm probably overthinking this.
 
Matthew said:
Yeah, I know. BM does require you to BE PIC. Logging PIC is different. But since this only comes up with me once every 3-4 years where I figure I'll LOG PIC as SP AND I'm in a plane I'm not checked out in to BE PIC, it's always something that pops into my head. As I said, I'm probably overthinking this.
Click to expand...

It’s always fun trying to meet the letter of the law -and- the insurance companies...

To quote Dr. Bruce... sigh.


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4RNB said:
First off, I passed my checkride and am now a pilot! Thanks for advice along the way.

I've seen people refer to a safety pilot for IFR training and currency. If I were to ever ask for someone to be my safety pilot or if I were to be one in someone's plane, are there requirements that need to be met? For example, I thought I came across somewhere in my studies that I should not serve as a safety pilot in a complex aircraft.
Click to expand...

While maybe being legal, it's not always wise. I wouldn't necessarily say a complex aircraft would be a line not cross, like say a C172 vs a C172RG. But a very high performance aircraft could be a problem. You are there to watch for traffic. If all of a sudden an airplane fills your windshield, you ain't got time to chat with pilot about it. Ya gotta react now. Slammin in aileron and elevator could have some bad consequences in like say from a pilot who's only flew a C150 doing it in like say a PC12
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
interesting....here I thought the SP needed to be appropriately rated to "be" PIC if needed.

But my rules are that SP needs to have a great set of eye balls.....to keep us whole. I really don't care how many ratings the cat has.
Click to expand...

Rating means a statement that, as a part of a certificate, sets forth special conditions, privileges, or limitations.
 
Are you people not listening?!!! HE GOT HIS TICKET!! Woo hoo!

Congratulations!

uh, no idea about the safety pilot thing...

Tools
 
Checkout_my_Six said:
rated
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Complex is not a rating.. but I agree that there are some pedantics there

-To the OP:
Safety pilot requirements are surprisingly thin.. you just need a medical and to be rated in the category and class.. that's it. You don't need to be current, complex, high performance, nada, nor IFR rated (which shouldn't matter since you are remaining VFR)

You can even log PIC time when your buddy is under the hood.. but I always felt that was a little bit "much" tbh..

The whole POINT of the safety is to see other airplanes while you are under the hood, but remaining VFR.

People do this when working on their IFR in order to get their "hood time" without paying for a CFI. So you grab your friend, who's also studying for IFR, and you go for a series of cross county lunch flights, one flies one way, one the other, and you take turns being under the hood.. both get to log a bunch of time, and split the cost.

Mind you, in my opinion.. 1 hr of actual is worth 100 hrs of hood time. The fact that the FAA does not require *any* actual is mind boggling.. but I digress.

Unfortunately, I have no close friends who live near me that are also multi rated.. so if I want to do some IFR work in a multi I legally can't use an ASEL safety.. shucks.
 
At least a private pilot certificate with the appropriate category and class ratings (here, "airplane single engine land"). That's right out of 91.109(c). Plus, because a safety pilot is a required crew the safety pilot must have the appropriate medical. That's the total base requirement for a safety pilot.

Endorsements can come into play, usually because of logging issues. Either the pilot flying or the safety pilot can "act" as PIC. The pilot flying always getS to log PIC (61.51(e)(1)(iii)). A safety pilot can only log PIC when acting as PIC (61.51(f)(2)). In order to act as PIC, a pilot needs the appropriate 61.31 endorsements. So, if your safety pilot wants to log PIC, he or she needs the endorsements.

Medical requirements has a weird anomaly. Because of the language of the statute and its adoption by the FAA, you can only act as a safety pilot if acting as PIC if you are relying on BasicMed.
 
Category and class only, and medical.

of course if they aren’t qualified to be pic, then they can’t act pic. So they could just log SIc when you’re under the hood.
 
Yep, the argument that the safety pilot has to be qualified to take the controls is specious. First, you don't need to be PIC-qualified to "take the controls." Second, there's little need for that. The safety pilot has on regulatory job: looking out the window. While self-preservation may mandate that they watch out for other excursions from normal flight, that's NOT why the FAA mandates they be there. If a hooded pilot needs more assistance than he required visual lookout, he should be looking for an instructor rather than a private pilot safety pilot.

And anytime you have more than one pilot in the plane, it would behoove you to work out what your responsibilities are going to be in advance. I remember a few years back (oh, hell it was 15 year ago now, time flies) when I first met Ron Levy (former CapnRon here). I was shuttling him back from the avionics shop where his Cheetah was getting work done and he hops in the Navion and says "I can be an instructor or a co-pilot or a passenger, but you tell me what you want before we go." We settled on co-pilot. He fiddled with my radios all the way back (I think in anticipation of the new ones in his plane).
 
Matthew said:
This might be something I'm overthinking, but...not an FAA thing, it's a rental agreement thing: Being Safety Pilot can put me as PIC when the other pilot is under the hood. Some of the rental planes available to me require me to be checked out before I can be PIC. Maybe I am overly cautious in this, but there's that chance of a bird strike or something else happening when I am "logging PIC" in a plane in which I'm not checked out for rental or insurance purposes.
Click to expand...
Yeah, one time I assumed the role of PIC while acting as safety pilot for a friend who was working on getting his instrument rating, because there were some clouds that were going to get in our way. He was flying a rental plane from an FBO at which I was not checked out. I realized later that this probably created an insurance issue.
 
On more than one occasion after a flight where I was working on currency and doing my logbook, I’ve had the buddy safety pilot say, “how much time were you under the hood so I can log PIC?” They thought simply because I went under the hood they became the PIC.

As myself and others have pointed out, that’s true if the buddy is BasicMed. Otherwise, no. Not unless I legally can’t be pic at all or we agree I give up my captain hat.


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Matthew said:
This might be something I'm overthinking, but...not an FAA thing, it's a rental agreement thing: Being Safety Pilot can put me as PIC when the other pilot is under the hood
Click to expand...
Well, you don't have to be PIC to act as a safety pilot. And I'm not so sure safety pilots take on any significant extra responsibility if they do.

But rental contracts and insurance policies definitely have a say in the pilots' decision about which of them will act as PIC. Some rental contracts even have a say as to who can take on any flight role at all.
 
Well, you don't have to be PIC to act as a safety pilot.
Click to expand...

You do if you're flying under basic med. Silly quirk in the reg.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Also do if the flying pilot isn't qualified. Since both were mentioned I didn't think they needed repeating,
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WHich is irrelevant to the safety pilot issue. Someone always HAS to be PIC and it behooves them to be legal to do so.
 
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