400 hours.. But no PPL

Palmpilot said:
Also, the size of the state and the low population density probably mean that the FAA simply doesn't have the resources to enforce the license requirement. I'm guessing that the chances of being ramp-checked in areas where you have to fly to the supermarket are pretty low.
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What about a very small town (population about 1,500 souls..) that the "airport" is a 2000 ft dirt strip close to our home that we built ourselves and is basically the only way of getting supplies to the people living there.... Do you really think the FAA is going to make a ramp check? The FAA doesnt know that we exist dam it!!!!!!

Guys, sometimes we think that the continental 48 states are the center of the universe.... With the nonsense regulations and stupid burocracies...... This is real life.... Planes are working machines.... They are not toys around here..... People fly because its the way of putting food in your table.... Do you really think that my 1965 C182 will care if my Garmin 796 or my very nice Dynon "Experimental" EFIS is "Non certfied" for approaches?? Please... Tell that to a guy that when his kids are sick the only way to get decent healthcare is by your old trusty bird....

Sorry.... I am venting.... But sometimes when I read about all the BS about FARs and regulations and certifications I feel sick.... I am not saying that they are not necessary for us to live in order and peace.... But fellow pilots believing and arguing about some of this crap is ridiculous.....
 
Question. Forgive me if it doesn't belong here, but I see really young kids driving I-81 in trucks with "FARM USE" plates. I asked one kid how old he was and he was 12. Is there a utility provision for unlicensed Pilots as well? Can you cropdust under a "FARM USE" designation?
 
LandSickness said:
Question. Forgive me if it doesn't belong here, but I see really young kids driving I-81 in trucks with "FARM USE" plates. I asked one kid how old he was and he was 12. Is there a utility provision for unlicensed Pilots as well? Can you cropdust under a "FARM USE" designation?
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No, there is none needed because there is no enforcement action pending, no reaction in restriction of motion is required. If your kid or you for that matter is flying his ultralight off the farm or whatever strip in airspace as permitted in Pt 103 of the FARs, one is perfectly legal to do so. There is even some Ag work done with UL with ultra low dispersion fungicides and such on steep small vineyard crops. Much of Ag though requires state pesticide licensing, so that is another issue.
 
LandSickness said:
Question. Forgive me if it doesn't belong here, but I see really young kids driving I-81 in trucks with "FARM USE" plates. I asked one kid how old he was and he was 12. Is there a utility provision for unlicensed Pilots as well? Can you cropdust under a "FARM USE" designation?
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No, and no.
 
Ron Levy said:
Please stop feeding the troll.
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Well.... If you think I am a troll.... Try spending 1 month here..... Do you really think what I posted here is a lie?? Ron, I respect you because I know that you are one of the best instructors in this country... But you need a taste of the real world.. Ask any pilot in Alaska... You will see...
 
Unregistered said:
Well.... If you think I am a troll.... Try spending 1 month here..... Do you really think what I posted here is a lie?? Ron, I respect you because I know that you are one of the best instructors in this country... But you need a taste of the real world.. Ask any pilot in Alaska... You will see...
Click to expand...

Don't feed the rule maven.
 
Unregistered said:
Sorry.... I am venting....
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If your story's true, maybe it would be best to vent without giving details that some overzealous FAA guy could use to find and make an example of you.

If you are trolling, please continue to post enough details to coax an FAA guy into a snipe hunt looking for "you".
 
I used to read the NTSB reporter magazine. The articles in this publication are very detailed about spotlighted aircraft accidents.

Over the years, one thing that kept coming up was the accident pilots history was that of not having a medical, the plane he was flying not having a current annual and pilots are discovered with illegal drugs or alcohol in their systems. Some of the pilots were flying commercial airliners.

It's dangerous to make the assumption that every one flying in the system is following the regulations.
 
From what he has posted here so far ai don't know one FAA guy who would get up from his coffee and donut for this. If they were reading this they'd see a problem that is about to take care of itself.
 
Maybe, but it only takes one guy with too much time on his hands to ruin your day.
 
Unregistered said:
Well.... If you think I am a troll.... Try spending 1 month here..... Do you really think what I posted here is a lie?? Ron, I respect you because I know that you are one of the best instructors in this country... But you need a taste of the real world.. Ask any pilot in Alaska... You will see...
Click to expand...
if you are for real, then you should tear up that log full of illegal flying, burn the pieces, and scatter the ashes across the state. Just stick with the legal log, and try not to talk or write or post about your illegal flying. And if the FAA ever asks about any flying other than what's in the legal log, zip your lip and keep it zipped.

And please try to exercise some self-control and stop doing what you know isn't legal.
 
\__[Ô]__/;976659 said:
Maybe, but it only takes one guy with too much time on his hands to ruin your day.
Click to expand...

No, it usually takes a mob, one person has little chance without slam spamming.
 
Ron Levy said:
And please try to exercise some self-control and stop doing what you know isn't legal.
Click to expand...

He's already expressed his desire to get legal, but how do you suggest that he get to a CFI without flying there? (See post #10 if you're wondering what I'm talking about.)
 
Henning said:
No, it usually takes a mob, one person has little chance without slam spamming.
Click to expand...

I meant one overzealous government person who who feels like running an investigation. Can't you think of anyone in the government who could cause you all sorts of grief if they thought you did something wrong? (and even more so, if you actually did do something wrong)

I'm not saying it's likely to happen in this case, but as a general rule, when posting of your illegal exploits online, it's best to avoid giving a bunch of identifying details.
 
Guys, I am not trying to create a controversy here... But that is the reality of Alaska Airmen. We are bush pilots by default, not by choice..... I respect Ron a lot but try to find a CFII around here.... I wish the FAA raises a flag and try to find us... There is lot of help that we need in terms of aviation infraestructure.... The problem here is not uncertified pilots... The issue here is that the goverment does not give a ****.... I am talking about dem & Reps.
 
Unregistered said:
Guys, I am not trying to create a controversy here... But that is the reality of Alaska Airmen. We are bush pilots by default, not by choice..... I respect Ron a lot but try to find a CFII around here.... I wish the FAA raises a flag and try to find us... There is lot of help that we need in terms of aviation infraestructure.... The problem here is not uncertified pilots... The issue here is that the goverment does not give a ****.... I am talking about dem & Reps.
Click to expand...

I would suggest you drop this thread about here, there is no future good that can come out of it.
 
Palmpilot said:
He's already expressed his desire to get legal, but how do you suggest that he get to a CFI without flying there? (See post #10 if you're wondering what I'm talking about.)
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Not knowing exactly where he lives or what his circumstances are, I can't say, but I can say that if he keeps this up, eventually he will be caught, and that will be on his record forever. My experience, however, is that if you want something enough, you'll find a legal way to do it.
 
Ron Levy said:
My experience, however, is that if you want something enough, you'll find a legal way to do it.
Click to expand...

How much experience do you have with living in Alaska?

From everything I've heard, we in the lower 48 live a pretty sheltered life.
 
If they have enough money to buy planes up there then they have enough money to take a month off come to the lower 48 and get a PPL. No excuse.
 
Unregistered said:
I have two logbooks, one legal and the real one. My question is that after passing my checkride.. Can I legally log those hours? I want to get my IFR rating also. BTW, I file IFR and fly approaches to minimuns......
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That's a very odd thing to come from someone who professes to not bother to ask los federales if they can get the groceries.

Seriously, you should NEVER admit the second logbook even exists. Ever. And Forever.
 
Back in the early '80s I was flying for a company in Wyoming. One of the local pilots came up to me one afternoon and asked me if I was a CFI. He mentioned that he had a problem and wanted to know how to handle it. It seems that several years earlier, be had bought a new Cessna 182 and started taking flying lessons in it. The problem was he stopped his flying lessons, but he never stopped his flying. Over the intervening 7 or 8 years he had continued to fly and dutifully log his time. He showed me his logbook and he had just over 700 hours of flight time, including around 20 hours of dual from way back when. He had flown that 182 all over the country, he just had never bothered with the formality of taking a written test, a checkride, of a flight physical. (He did tell me that he had a physical every year with his doctor.) His question to me was could I help him get straight with the FAA? I called one of my buddies at the FSDO and asked him what I should do and how I should go about doing it. My inspector buddy told me that there was a lot of that stuff going around. It seems that there were quite a few that ranchers had airplanes and a few of them just weren't overly concerned about stuff like licenses, inspections, physicals and technical things like that. Nowadays, we talk about a kinder, gentler FAA, but back then all they wanted to do is to get the guy legal. The guy went into the big city and got a flight physical and attended one of those weekend ground schools and passed the written. I gave him a few hours dual to"polish the apple" for the checkride - it didn't take much, he was a pretty good stick. Finally, once all of his ducks were in a row, I sent him to a DPE that the FAA recommended and he walked away with a license in his pocket.

My recommendation is to find a well connected local CFI and have a heart-to-heart talk with him. My advise to you is that you have better be very penitent and very serious when you have that talk. Hopefully he will be willing to give the guys at the local FSDO a call and have a "Let's suppose there was this guy who had done something very stupid but wanted to come clean. How might be the best way to handle this?" As you have learned, it's usually best to play by the rules. If the Feds ever find out about this on their own you will be screwed. In my opinion it will be best to come clean and move forward. Good luck to you.
 
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Dead Stick said:
My recommendation is to find a well connected local CFI and have a heart-to-heart talk with him. My advise to you is that you have better be very penitent and very serious when you have that talk. Hopefully he will be willing to give the guys at the local FSDO a call and have a "Let's suppose there was this guy who had done something very stupid but wanted to come clean. How might be the best way to handle this?" As you have learned, it's usually best to play by the rules. If the Feds ever find out about this on their own you will be screwed. In my opinion it will be best to come clean and move forward. Good luck to you.
Click to expand...
I think this is the worst advice given so far. What good can possibly come from the OP trying to come clean with the FAA? Why does the FSDO need to know anything? If he wants confession, confess to a priest not an ASI or even a CFI. He needs to find a local CFII, yes (what happened to the one who gave him the instrument training?). Don't show the CFI the illegal logbook, just the legal one. The CFI will know the OP has a lot more hours than his logbook shows, if he's any good. So what?

Finish the PPL, finish the IR. If he needs a medical, get it. Now he's legal. What happened is in the past, don't mention it again. Case closed.
 
Go in with your 60 hour log book, pass your PPL. Then every now and then copy an entry from "your other log book" into your real log book, changing only the date to be in a logical sequence sometime after your PPL checkride. You're going to need 50 hours XC + some hood time, only some of which have to be with a CFI. You can do your PPL now and your IR will take hardly any time, then just add an entry here and there to get all your time back. I mean, if you get to pick and chose what regs to follow, why the hell not? You can go straight after the merge. :hairraise:
 
I don't get this, OP. If you're not a troll, you are a little confused.

You've been been flying your own plane for 20 years, solo and with pax, unlicensed and I presume uninsured (unless you can get coverage without a cert in Alaska), and it's never been problem for you... because Alaska, etc... but now you suddenly want to know how to make it legal. And you're seeking advice on the situation from lower-48-ers, even though we can't possibly understand how it is in Alaska, etc.

Maybe the local CFI prepping you for the checkride could advise you... or do you dare not ask, because he also does not know you've been flying pax in your own airplane all this time without a ticket?

I also don't get how you can fly your own plane only 400 hours in 20 years, especially when you need to fly to the grocery store (Alaska, etc. again)... but the advice I can give you is to carry on as you were, and forget the check ride. You're probably less likely to get in trouble doing that than to expose this mess to the FAA (which does not follow a different FAR/AIM for Alaska, as far as I know). :wink2:
 
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Unregistered said:
I have two logbooks, one legal and the real one. My question is that after passing my checkride.. Can I legally log those hours? I want to get my IFR rating also. BTW, I file IFR and fly approaches to minimuns......
Click to expand...
Sit back and think about what you are saying versus what you are asking.

You maintain two logbooks. You do this because you know that some (most) of the hours you are flying are illegal. And you are asking if you can take those ILLEGAL hours and somehow make them LEGAL. This is like asking if registering a car that you have stolen would make it legal. The answer in both cases would be no. I'm sure you probably know this already, but you have an emotional attachment to the hundreds of hours you have flown, and don't want to lose touch with them by ditching your "illegal hours" log book.

What you have is evidence of your illegal actions in an activity that is highly regulated by a draconian bureaucratic machine (the FAA). I think you can answer your own question fairly easily.

As a bystander just looking at the facts, here is what I would guess would be your options:

- Lawyer up, confess to your actions, work through the process and hope for the best. This would remove any kind of future consequences and repercussions from the picture, but the outcome most likely will not be what you want.
- Burn the logbook with all your illegal hours. Never mention those hours to anyone, ever. Work within the system to finish up with a CFI that will sign you off for your checkride, and then do your checkride. Hope that nobody drops a dime on you. Live with the possibility that at some time in the future the FAA will do the math and will come knocking on your door. I have no idea if the FAA even has the ability to do this, but I would not discount it completely.
- Continue on your present course and plan for the day when the FAA will eventually bring down all manner of hell on your head.

caveat: I am not a pilot.
 
Dead Stick said:
Back in the early '80s I was flying for a company in Wyoming. One of the local pilots came up to me one afternoon and asked me if I was a CFI. He mentioned that he had a problem and wanted to know how to handle it. It seems that several years earlier, be had bought a new Cessna 182 and started taking flying lessons in it. The problem was he stopped his flying lessons, but he never stopped his flying. Over the intervening 7 or 8 years he had continued to fly and dutifully log his time. He showed me his logbook and he had just over 700 hours of flight time, including around 20 hours of dual from way back when. He had flown that 182 all over the country, he just had never bothered with the formality of taking a written test, a checkride, of a flight physical. (He did tell me that he had a physical every year with his doctor.) His question to me was could I help him get straight with the FAA? I called one of my buddies at the FSDO and asked him what I should do and how I should go about doing it. My inspector buddy told me that there was a lot of that stuff going around. It seems that there were quite a few that ranchers had airplanes and a few of them just weren't overly concerned about stuff like licenses, inspections, physicals and technical things like that. Nowadays, we talk about a kinder, gentler FAA, but back then all they wanted to do is to get the guy legal. The guy went into the big city and got a flight physical and attended one of those weekend ground schools and passed the written. I gave him a few hours dual to"polish the apple" for the checkride - it didn't take much, he was a pretty good stick. Finally, once all of his ducks were in a row, I sent him to a DPE that the FAA recommended and he walked away with a license in his pocket.

My recommendation is to find a well connected local CFI and have a heart-to-heart talk with him. My advise to you is that you have better be very penitent and very serious when you have that talk. Hopefully he will be willing to give the guys at the local FSDO a call and have a "Let's suppose there was this guy who had done something very stupid but wanted to come clean. How might be the best way to handle this?" As you have learned, it's usually best to play by the rules. If the Feds ever find out about this on their own you will be screwed. In my opinion it will be best to come clean and move forward. Good luck to you.
Click to expand...




Please don't do this. ^^^^^^^^
 
if I was flying illegally, I would have thousands of hours, wink wink. in jets and helicopters. This is the same as saying its ok to drink and drive in (random southern place) south Alabama because its just what we do down there. If its that terrible in Alaska, we need to initiate evacuations.
 
I would say dont present evidence of wrongdoing if you dont need to. Just get the PPL and move forward. And think of how much better of a pilot you should be with hundreds of hours of experience packed into those 60 logged hours...
 
I think it's great that the OP has decided to go legal. And based on the circumstances, I guess that's not an easy thing to do. After reading through the thread, I have a better understanding why Alaska has a reputation for having so many pilots flying without proper certification.

As for the OP's situation, some people have mentioned talking about it with the FAA. I felt I should share this Venn diagram which is relevant and quite handy. It's also available as a business card you can keep in your wallet for quick reference when away from your computer.

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\__[Ô]__/;977022 said:
I think it's great that the OP has decided to go legal. And based on the circumstances, I guess that's not an easy thing to do. After reading through the thread, I have a better understanding why Alaska has a reputation for having so many pilots flying without proper certification.

As for the OP's situation, some people have mentioned talking about it with the FAA. I felt I should share this Venn diagram which is relevant and quite handy. It's also available as a business card you can keep in your wallet for quick reference when away from your computer.

attachment.php
Click to expand...

:rofl::rofl::rofl:
 
I'm a little disappointed the OP didn't mention flying passengers for hire to his list of transgressions. Hey, I mean everyone's gotta make a living, right?

I can only assume that 182 isn't being maintained by an A&P, either.

But hey, it's Alaska.

By the way, a town of 1,500 isn't small by Alaska standards. 300 maybe.
 
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