Remarks: How's That Look?

Remarks: How’s That Look?

Frank Bowlin

Tuesday, December 22, 2020 at 08:59 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

Pilots often bend regulations or common sense, but these seemingly minor infractions can have severe consequences, especially if an accident occurs.
A non-CFI cannot legally provide flight instruction or allow a student to log flight time, regardless of seat occupancy or whether funds are exchanged.
The best test for judging the legality and appropriateness of actions is to consider how they would appear in a hypothetical accident report or "rear-view mirror of life" if something went wrong.
Actions that seem innocent or minor can become problematic when viewed retrospectively, potentially impacting legal standing and insurance coverage.

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Sometimes we stretch the regulations, or worse, common sense. Some examples include VFR weather minimums (scud running), night currency, or even logging.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not advocating that. But who among us hasn’t occasionally stretched the speed limit on a lonely country highway or even a busy urban commute, or committed some equally innocent-seeming infraction of the FARs we generally try to follow? We’re human; it happens to us all, even though our self-image might say otherwise. Ask pilots featured in this issue’s annual “Stupid Pilot Tricks;” most probably didn’t see anything wrong until, well, it went way wrong.