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Question

In the USA, do logged SIC-hours have any specific practical use beyond total time filler? Is there any corner case where PIC-time cannot substitute as equal to SIC-time? Either for meeting currency, certification, or hiring requirements? (This assumes a flight-segment meets the legal logging requirements of both.) Is there ever any reason to log it as SIC-time rather than PIC-time if able?

I've done some searching and haven't found any specific requirements for minimum hours of SIC-time.

I'm making a digital logbook and if there is no corner case I can make a couple simplifications. To be clear you could record both SIC-time and PIC-time if the flight-segment qualifies for both, but when querying the data you need to differentiate so as not to double count the time in totals that may consume both fields.

Answer 1

In the USA, do logged SIC-hours have any specific practical use beyond total time filler?

Yes. You can use SIC time when calculating the 1,500 hrs. pilot time needed for an ATP certificate. The term pilot time is defined in §61.1 and includes any time serving as a required crew member.

Is there any corner case where PIC-time cannot substitute as equal to SIC-time?

No. PIC time is preferred but not everyone is looking for PIC time logged in accordance with §61.51, they are looking for captain time or the one who is legally responsible for the airplane.

Either for meeting currency, certification, or hiring requirements?

• See §61.57 Recent flight experience: Pilot in Command
• See §61.55 Second-in-Command qualifications to include three takeoff and landings in the preceding 12 months among other criteria

As stated, you can count SIC time as part of the required 1500 hrs. pilot time for an ATP.

For hiring, I would include all aeronautical experience I can. I would log in my logbook all flights per the regulations. Any other aeronautical experience I would catalog in a separate binder. For example, you rode jump seat in a certain jet or was the "copilot" in a King-Air but couldn't use the time for FAA purposes.

Answer 2

One meaning of PIC is "in charge, signed for the airplane" in-command. So for an airplane requiring two pilots, the Captain is always the PIC, and the FO is the SIC. For some hiring (more so in the past, as the supply of pilots has gotten tighter), only this sort of PIC "counts."

Beyond that, there is "sole manipulator of the controls" PIC. So the FO would log this flavor of PIC on his legs, and would log SIC for the legs that the Captain is flying. And PIC + SIC for that pilot would give total time.

I once had a pilot who reviewed logbooks as part of an airline's hiring process tell me that when he saw a timespan where every other leg was PIC, he knew that the pilot at that point wasn't signing for the airplane. Then when the logbook started showing every leg as PIC (i.e. even when this pilot wasn't the sole manipulator of the controls), that was the point when he started signing for the airplane, and at which point the time became "interesting" for hiring purposes.

It sounds like your question is, essentially, can you just have total time and PIC time, and infer that whatever time was logged as total but not as PIC, is therefore SIC time? I expect that you could do that; I don't know how well it would be received if reviewers are expecting to see XXXX hours PIC + YYYY hours SIC = ZZZZ hour total. Would the presence of some amount of student time (total, but not PIC) disrupt that assumption?