AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2013 - 26

PILOT COUNSEL

Safety pilot

BY JOHN S. YODICE

When you need someone beside you

JOHN S. YODICE

is a legal expert
for AOPA Pilot
Protection
Services. He will
be a featured
speaker at
AOPA Aviation
Summit 2013.

26 | AOPA PILOT August 2013

IT IS FAR 91.109(C) that specifically imposes the requirement that a safety pilot be on board an aircraft being
operated in simulated instrument flight. This regulation
is really a supplement to the see-and-avoid responsibility imposed by FAR 91.113(b). “When weather
conditions permit, regardless of whether an operation
is conducted under instrument flight rules or visual
flight rules, vigilance shall be maintained by each person operating the aircraft so as to see and avoid other
aircraft.” So, in discharge of this responsibility, it makes
sense that if a pilot’s vision is restricted, as in simulated
instrument flight, there must be another qualified pilot
on board primarily to help see and avoid other aircraft.
What qualifications are necessary for a safety pilot
to be able to properly discharge this responsibility? FAR
91.109(c), itself, tells us some of the qualifications, but
there are other qualifications imposed by other regulations. FAR 91.109(c)(1) requires that the safety pilot
must hold at least a private pilot certificate. The pilot
certificate must have category and class ratings that are
appropriate to the aircraft being flown.
FAR 91.109 does not address a safety pilot’s need
for a medical certificate, or instrument rating, or
recent experience. We need to look elsewhere in the
regulations. The FAA interprets other regulations to
require a medical certificate. Here is the FAA’s analysis. FAR 61.3(c) provides, with certain exceptions not
relevant here, that no person may act in any capacity
as a required pilot flight crewmember under an FAAissued pilot certificate unless he or she holds a current
appropriate airman medical certificate. FAR 1.1 defines
a “flight crewmember” as a pilot assigned to perform a
duty in an aircraft during flight time. Since a safety pilot
is required by regulation to be on board to perform seeand-avoid duties, and since the safety pilot must hold a
pilot certificate, under this analysis the safety pilot must
hold a current, appropriate airman medical certificate.
A safety pilot does not have to have an instrument
rating if the flight is being conducted under the visual
flight rules. However, if the aircraft is operated under
instrument flight rules, even in VFR conditions, whoever is acting as pilot in command of the flight must hold
an instrument rating appropriate to the aircraft being
operated. So, if a pilot who is not instrument rated is flying an aircraft IFR under a hood simulating instrument
conditions, the safety pilot must necessarily be acting
as pilot in command of an aircraft operating IFR, and

therefore must hold an instrument rating. If the pilot
under the hood is instrument rated and acting as pilot
in command, even though the flight is IFR, the safety
pilot is not required to have an instrument rating or be
instrument current.
What about recent experience and flight review
requirements? Certainly, whoever is pilot in command
must meet these requirements. But what about a safety
pilot who is not pilot in command? Notice that the
requirements of FAR 61.57(b) and (c), for three takeoffs and three landings in the past 90 days, apply only to
a person who serves as pilot in command on a flight on
which passengers are carried. So, since the safety pilot
is not pilot in command, the safety pilot does not have
to have this recent experience.
What about the flight review requirements of FAR
61.56 (commonly but incorrectly called the “biennial
flight review” or BFR)? This requirement applies only
to a person who serves as pilot in command. So long as
the safety pilot does not act as pilot in command, this
requirement does not apply to the safety pilot.
So much for the qualifications of a safety pilot. There
are a few other requirements that relate to the safety
pilot that I should mention. Most important, and for
obvious reasons, the aircraft must be equipped with
fully functioning dual controls (there is a special exception in FAR 91.109[b] for single-engine airplanes, which
allows for the use of a single, functioning, throw-over
control wheel), and the safety pilot must occupy a control position so as to be able to manipulate the controls
if necessary. And, companion to this requirement, the
safety pilot must have adequate vision forward and to
each side of the aircraft. If there are any restrictions to
the safety pilot’s view, the restrictions must be compensated by “a competent observer in the aircraft [who]
adequately supplements the vision of the safety pilot.”
If the pilot under the hood is logging time to meet
any aeronautical experience or training requirements,
which usually is the case, the name of the safety pilot
must be entered into the pilot’s logbook along with
the usual logged information such as the date, flight
time, location, aircraft, and the type of each instrument
approach accomplished. No other identification of the
safety pilot is needed other than his or her name. The
safety pilot has no similar logging requirement. AOPA
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - August 2013

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