BasicMed Safety Pilot

When we got BasicMed, something wed done for a long time was taken away. BasicMed applies to acting as pilot in command. But, with BasicMed youre not legal to act as a safety pilot for your buddy whos under the hood practicing approaches in VMC. So, you exercise the workaround of agreeing ahead of time that you, the safety pilot, are indeed the PIC for this flight (more on that in a moment), then youre once again good to go even with BasicMed ... if, that is, the aircraft insurance agrees. Lets look more carefully at all this.

Frank Bowlin

Saturday, April 13, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

Key Takeaways:

BasicMed allows a pilot to act as Pilot In Command (PIC) but does not qualify them as a "required flightcrew member" like a safety pilot for simulated instrument flight, which still requires at least a Third Class Medical.
A common workaround involves the BasicMed pilot and the pilot under the hood agreeing beforehand that the BasicMed pilot will be the official PIC for the flight, allowing both to legally log PIC time.
While FAA-compliant, this workaround frequently causes issues with aircraft insurance policies, which may not cover the BasicMed pilot acting as PIC if they don't meet specific named pilot or open pilot clause requirements.

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This whole BasicMed and safety pilot issue has been going around a lot lately. We’ve written about it a few times. Most recently was just in our March 2019 issue “Logging vs. Being PIC” by Mark Kolber. However, just about every time this comes up in print, we get some reader e-mail asking further about it. So, here’s all you could possibly want to know.

When we got BasicMed, something we’d done for a long time was taken away. BasicMed applies to acting as pilot in command. But, with BasicMed you’re not legal to act as a safety pilot for your buddy who’s under the hood practicing approaches in VMC. So, you exercise the workaround of agreeing ahead of time that you, the safety pilot, are indeed the PIC for this flight (more on that in a moment), then you’re once again good to go even with BasicMed … if, that is, the aircraft insurance agrees. Let’s look more carefully at all this.