The "he was a passenger" is a cop out. If you are a pilot, even a student
pilot with only 30 hours, and you are in the airplane, why wouldn't you do
everything you could to be prepared?? which to me starts at home with
flight planning.

At 30 hours, I would expect that the student pilot/passenger had completed
at least part of his cross country training, so I'd expect that if he had
agreed to do the hands on flying through that type of airspace that he would
take the effort to flight plan it also. Granted, he was not PIC, nor was he
under any obligation or requirement to flight plan the trip, but any student
worth his salt would have if knowing in advance that he would be doing the
actual flying through that airspace.

I'll also put some more blame on Mr. Shaeffer for not mentoring the student
pilot towards flight planning the trip. I would expect that suggestion of
any private pilot that takes a cross country flight with a student pilot.
You don't have to be an instructor to promote and display proper flight
planning to students.

....and when I go on a cross country flight "just as a passenger" of another
pilot, I usually will take the trouble to draw a line on a map... takes all
of about 45 seconds. The closest prohibited area here is a live fire
bombing range in the middle of a restricted area which is in the middle of a
MOA, I don't care who the PIC is, I'll still plan the proposed route.

Jim

"John Galban" wrote in message
oups.com...


Jim Burns wrote:

I feel no sympathy for Mr. Sheaffer. I feel a little for Mr. Martin,
but he
too, even as a 30 hour student, should have flight planned the route and
made himself extremely familiar with it.

He should have?? He was a passenger. While it may be a good
learning exercise (assuming he was even at that stage of his training),
I wouldn't expect a passenger to go to that kind of effort. If this
was a training flight with an actual instructor, that would be a
different story.

When I go along for a ride as a passenger, I don't flight plan a
proposed route. I let the PIC take care of that.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)