Always Remember to Mind Your Passengers

Having passengers in the back seat gives the learner an opportunity to practice and apply weight-and-balance calculations.

Meg Godlewski

Tuesday, November 14, 2023 at 08:00 PM ET

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Carrying passengers - especially young ones - can come with challenges. [Credit: Shutterstock/Jazmin Gonzalez]

Key Takeaways:

During dual flight lessons, an instructor can legally carry a back-seat passenger, providing the student with valuable experience in weight-and-balance and flying a heavier aircraft, while also allowing other students to learn through observation.
Managing back-seat passengers, including family members, requires clear communication of their role (e.g., observing, looking for traffic) and a thorough safety briefing to prevent distractions and ensure a productive learning environment.
Flight instructors should always ask the primary learner if they are comfortable with an observer, respecting their preferences regarding distractions or potential requests for cost-sharing.

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One of the first questions I ask a private pilot candidate is, “Who will your first passenger be?” Most often, it is a family member. We talk about the limitation noted in FAR 61.89 that states carriage of passengers is not permitted by student pilots since they cannot legally act as pilot in command (PIC) in an aircraft with passengers. However, during dual lessons the flight instructor is the PIC, therefore, if your aircraft has a back seat, you could legally carry a passenger.

Having a passenger in the back seat gives the learner/pilot the opportunity to practice and apply weight-and-balance calculations and to experience what a heavier airplane feels like. It can be an eye-opening experience.