Who's the Boss

How sweeping? Well, it gives you permission, in advance, to break the rules: In an in-flight emergency that requires immediate action, you may deviate from the regulations to respond to that emergency. Of course, with this heady authority comes a heavy load of responsibility. You’re also directly responsible for the operation of the aircraft, and there’s no passing the buck if something goes wrong.

So who gets granted this special dispensation? The pilot in command, abbreviated as PIC.

Who is PIC? FAR 1.1 defines the pilot in command as the person who “has final authority and responsibility for the operation and safety of the flight; has been designated as pilot in command before or during the flight; and holds the appropriate category, class, and type rating—if appropriate—for the conduct of the flight.”

So it’s the person in the left seat, right? Not necessarily. Sometimes the pilot in command is chosen by default. If you’re at the controls of a single-seat Pitts S1, you’re the pilot in command. At other times, regulations may dictate the relationship between multiple pilots, as can ratings, currency, medical certificates, type certificates, and other details. So, too, can assigned functions between the pilots. Finally, in some cases pilots are free to choose who is in charge. It’s important to note, however, that the highest-rated pilot does not automatically become the PIC. The pilot in command is the pilot in charge, not necessarily the pilot flying the airplane. In fact, it’s possible to be pilot in command without touching the controls for the entire flight. In theory, the PIC might not even be at the controls. The pilot in command is the responsible party, and that doesn’t need to be the same as the sole manipulator of the controls. Of course, on most general aviation flights, the sole manipulator of the controls is the PIC; and in big air carrier airplanes with multiple crew members, defining who is in command is fairly easy. But things can get muddled pretty quickly when two general aviation pilots fly together in a small airplane. While the buck has to stop with one pilot in the air, on paper there are times when two pilots can log PIC time for the same flight. That’s because in the muddled world of aviation regulations, there are distinctions between serving as pilot in command and logging hours as pilot in command. FAR 61.51 has been interpreted as saying that logging PIC time may be “different and distinct” from acting as the pilot in command. The most common example is during instrument flight practice using a view-limiting device. The pilot under the hood is the sole manipulator of the controls and can log his time as PIC, but he’s not in charge. Instead, the safety pilot, with her eyes on the outside world, is the actual pilot in command. How on Earth does that work? The guy under the hood is the sole manipulator of the controls under FAR 61.51, but under these circumstances a safety pilot becomes a required crewmember (even in an airplane that doesn’t normally have any required crew beyond the pilot) under FAR 91.109. So during hood time, they can both log. Again, this is a bookkeeping distinction. In actual flight there can be only one pilot in command. Another example of dual logging would be when a fully certificated and current pilot flies with an instructor to complete some of the flight phases of his or her FAA Wings program. The pilot manipulating the controls is the pilot in command, but the rules that govern Part 91 flight instructors (FAR 61.51) allow them to log all instruction time as pilot-in-command time, even if they are not acting as PIC on the flight.