Logging vs. Being PIC

You are an instrument-rated private pilot. Your friend is working on the rating and you have acted as her safety pilot while she practices under the hood. Shes doing great. Today ceilings are high but below final approach fix altitudes. You feel comfortable filing IFR as pilot in command while she flies, so you file and off you go in the clubs 172. No hood for your friend today. She does all the flying. Two approaches, with 12 minutes in actual instrument conditions. She did well.

Mark Kolber

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 at 12:00 AM ET

Verified

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Key Takeaways:

Flight time logging, governed by FAR 61.51, operates under the "Golden Key" principle: a pilot's status on a flight and their ability to log time are independent and unrelated concepts.
The primary purpose of logging flight time is to qualify for certificates/ratings or satisfy recent flight experience requirements, not necessarily to reflect who held ultimate responsibility as pilot in command.
A pilot who is the "sole manipulator" of the controls and is rated for the aircraft may log pilot-in-command flight time (PICFT), even if they lack specific endorsements (like an instrument rating) or currency to legally act as pilot in command for that specific operation.
In the scenario where an instrument-rated PIC oversees a non-instrument-rated pilot flying in actual instrument conditions (without a hood), the student (sole manipulator) logs PICFT and actual instrument time, while the instrument-rated PIC may log nothing, due to the specific "logging boxes" defined in 61.51.

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You are an instrument-rated private pilot. Your friend is working on the rating and you have acted as her safety pilot while she practices under the hood. She’s doing great. Today ceilings are high but below final approach fix altitudes. You feel comfortable filing IFR as pilot in command while she flies, so you file and off you go in the club’s 172. No hood for your friend today. She does all the flying. Two approaches, with 12 minutes in actual instrument conditions. She did well.

Back on the ground, the logbooks come out. How does she log the flight time? How do you?