Logbook Legitimacy?

RussR said:
I actually see obviously incorrect IMC figures quite often. I did an IPC for a guy that had something like 600 total hours and 300 of "actual". He thought any time you were on an IFR flight plan, you logged that as "actual". (The heading in his logbook might have been different, I don't remember.)

As far as I could determine, it was an honest misunderstanding, probably caused by a former instructor. And I've seen it numerous times, so there is some bad misunderstanding out there (about something I always thought was obvious, not like the "logging PIC/acting PIC" confusion).

If I see an amount of actual IFR that's more than about 10% of their total time, that starts to get suspicious. For my clientele (which is mostly aircraft owners who generally fly for fun) and in my area, it happens, but rarely.
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There was an accident a few years back where this was the case, half the guy’s hours were “IMC”, and he died due to lose of control in actual IMC.
I’ve also heard of MSFS time being counted.
While legal, I have to question the ability of a CFI recording time while sitting in the right seat. Does that really improve their skills?
I would hope those that cannot fly would be washed out…especially after the Colgan accident.
 
RyanB said:
Not really. Just depends on whether or not the simulator that it runs on is FAA approved or not.
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Do I remember rightly that the Redbird simulators use MSFS?
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
While legal, I have to question the ability of a CFI recording time while sitting in the right seat. Does that really improve their skills?
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They improve significantly. Watching your student's mistake, and talking them through fixing them, leads to much better flying skills from the CFI as well as improvement in situational awareness.

Lindberg said:
Section 61.[5]9 does not apply to all log book entries generally.
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I think the problem would come in with the requirement, from 61.51(a), to keep a your record in a manner that is acceptable to the Administrator. If your required entries are mixed with with a bunch of fraudulent entries, I don't think the logbook will pass that test.
 
mryan75 said:
Well in any event, the person who falsified their logbook is responsible.
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Of course. However, it's a cautionary tale about what other people know about things you have done. This does not only have to do with aviation matters...
 
Larry in TN said:
They improve significantly. Watching your student's mistake, and talking them through fixing them, leads to much better flying skills from the CFI as well as improvement in situational awareness.


I think the problem would come in with the requirement, from 61.51(a), to keep a your record in a manner that is acceptable to the Administrator. If your required entries are mixed with with a bunch of fraudulent entries, I don't think the logbook will pass that test.
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That also only apples to time required to be logged.
 
Lindberg said:
Section 61.[5]9 does not apply to all log book entries generally.
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Of course not..Only the ones that count. There was one case where the pilot argued his padding time in type was irrelevant to his checkride because he exceeded requirements with the legitimate ones.

Certificates and ratings revoked.
 
Lindberg said:
That also only apples to time required to be logged.
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If you have a logbook, with a significant amount of fraudulent entries mixed in with the required legitimate ones, how do you tell them apart? How is a record with no way of knowing which entries are correct going to meet the 'acceptable to the Administrator' requirement?
 
midlifeflyer said:
Of course not..Only the ones that count. There was one case where the pilot argued his padding time in type was irrelevant to his checkride because he exceeded requirements with the legitimate ones.

Certificates and ratings revoked.
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No doubt. The question, and the post that started this sub thread, aren't about checkrides though.
 
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Larry in TN said:
If you have a logbook, with a significant amount of fraudulent entries mixed in with the required legitimate ones, how do you tell them apart? How is a record with no way of knowing which entries are correct going to meet the 'acceptable to the Administrator' requirement?
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You clearly annotate which ones are which. ;)
 
Lindberg said:
No doubt. The question, and the post that started this sub thread, aren't about checkrides.
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I think it would be hard to argue that time reported in a job application wasn't being used to fulfill 14 CFR §121.436 or §135.243. Unless you have employers who say "okay, show me your logbook to apply... okay, you're hired, now show me your real logbook to prove you're allowed to do the job we hired you to do." I think that 121 and 135 minima count as an "authorization under this part," and if you're providing a logbook (partially) for that purpose, and some of the records are falsified, you would get wrapped up in the legal repercussions even if "enough" of the entries were true.
 
mcmanigle said:
I think it would be hard to argue that time reported in a job application wasn't being used to fulfill 14 CFR §121.436 or §135.243. Unless you have employers who say "okay, show me your logbook to apply... okay, you're hired, now show me your real logbook to prove you're allowed to do the job we hired you to do." I think that 121 and 135 minima count as an "authorization under this part," and if you're providing a logbook (partially) for that purpose, and some of the records are falsified, you would get wrapped up in the legal repercussions even if "enough" of the entries were true.
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For reference, here's what I responded to:
Falsifying logbook entries is also a Federal violation and could lead to heavy fines to top it off.
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As a general proposition, as stated, this is not necessarily true.
 
What about rounding to the nearest tenth? Say you flew for 1.46 hours, and you round up to 1.5 hours? Or 1.45 hours and round down to 1.4.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Most of the safety pilot time I've come across is legit. I've heard of logging SIC in King Airs with no regulatory basis at all and wonder how prevalent that is,
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That’s the kind of stuff that does frequently get flagged on interview logbook reviews. Same with people logging SIC in CJs and other single pilot jets.

What sucks is there are a lot of young pilots chasing pro dreams and logging stuff like that without realizing it’s no bueno.
 
bluerooster said:
What about rounding to the nearest tenth? Say you flew for 1.46 hours, and you round up to 1.5 hours? Or 1.45 hours and round down to 1.4.
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What about it? Is rounding not what most pilots do? I’ve never logged beyond one decimal place.

57 minutes is .95 rounded up to 1.0
56 minutes is .93 round down to .9

In the grand scheme of things, it all evens out.
 
bluerooster said:
What about rounding to the nearest tenth? Say you flew for 1.46 hours, and you round up to 1.5 hours? Or 1.45 hours and round down to 1.4.
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1.45 rounds to 1.5. 1.44 rounds to 1.4.
 
Brad W said:
I have a hard time imagining anyone really disecting the details...the routing...etc... unless it's an accident investigation
but
I'll bet those that do look at them regularly, such as examiners or airlines probably know the trick and things will jump out that I never would notice....
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That and I have noticed that usually when people start doing stupid (illegal, dishonest) things they tend to start doing more stupid things that obviously give them away but doesn’t even occur to them. The guy logging fictional flights in the examiners airplane is a great example, it never occurs to him that the examiner might know or even own the airplane.

The Faa relys on a pilots integrity in a lot of things, but as a result they are very intolerant of pilots abusing that trust.

Brian
 
I have the opposite from faked time; I have years of unlogged flying. I thought I would catch up on my logbook by using the ship's log. Turns out I tossed it after we sold the plane.
I'm not even gonna estimate my hours (though I've been told that I can) as I don't really need them (though they may help with insurance, come to think of it ...)
 
brcase said:
That and I have noticed that usually when people start doing stupid (illegal, dishonest) things they tend to start doing more stupid things that obviously give them away but doesn’t even occur to them. The guy logging fictional flights in the examiners airplane is a great example, it never occurs to him that the examiner might know or even own the airplane.

The Faa relys on a pilots integrity in a lot of things, but as a result they are very intolerant of pilots abusing that trust.

Brian
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Doesn't even have to be dishonest. ASIs have told me when they investigate a pilot deviation, even an innocent one like the common IFR altitude bust, they often find others.
 
I received a resume once that included a line stating, ''I am a 500 hour pilot but I fly like a 1000 hour pilot''.

Ok, what does that mean since the job description stated that 1200 hours minimum was required.??
 
NoHeat said:
Sounds like a sci-fi story. Fly close enough to the speed of light, and 500 hours as measured in the cockpit would be 1000 hours as measured on the ground.
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Good point... I shoulda asked the guy what planet he was from...:lol::lol:
 
MauleSkinner said:
that’s a good theory, but it doesn’t necessarily average out in practice.
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While it's theoretically possible for enough of the rounding errors to stack up in the same direction to throw off the cumulative total of logged time by a meaningful percentage, that would be an extremely rare event if the standard rules of rounding are applied. For one thing, adding up to greater than 5% of the total would require the average length of all the flights to be less than one hour.
 
Palmpilot said:
While it's theoretically possible for enough of the rounding errors to stack up in the same direction to throw off the cumulative total of logged time by a meaningful percentage, that would be an extremely rare event if the standard rules of rounding are applied. For one thing, adding up to greater than 5% of the total would require the average length of all the flights to be less than one hour.
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I guess it depends on your definition of “all evens out”.
 
Zeldman said:
I received a resume once that included a line stating, ''I am a 500 hour pilot but I fly like a 1000 hour pilot''.

Ok, what does that mean since the job description stated that 1200 hours minimum was required.??
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I have some hours in a 182 in Africa (South Africa registration) but I was a student and the fellow flying with me did not have a South African CFI. Still, I got quite a few hours as sole manipulator that I can't log. I wrote them in on the last pages of my log book and while I totaled them up, they are not included in my main logbook entries. So I guess I fly as if I have 30 more hours than I actually do. Hahaha.

It's just for me since I may not get the chance to land in Mozambique, Malawi, and other exotic locales again.
 
Tantalum said:
Indeed. And I wrote that backwards, meant to be "staying VFR while flying IMC" .. I bet there are a lot of people who always manage to "find a hole" .. there was a guy in a Mooney a few years ago blasting along in the clouds not talking to anyone and drilled into a mountain top.. looked like he was tracking the VOR

http://www.kathrynsreport.com/2017/01/mooney-m20j-fatal-accident-occurred.html
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I think anyone who has flown IFR much has been IMC and had ATC call out a VFR traffic target, that they knew full good and well could not be VMC. Those guys are indeed out there.
 
midwestpa24 said:
I think anyone who has flown IFR much has been IMC and had ATC call out a VFR traffic target, that they knew full good and well could not be VMC. Those guys are indeed out there.
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Oh for sure.. "same altitude, 3 o'clock, 2 miles, not talking to him" <- I love replying with a curt "we're IMC" to those.. which is usually followed by a climb or descent or turn heading X instruction
 
Tantalum said:
Oh for sure.. "same altitude, 3 o'clock, 2 miles, not talking to him" <- I love replying with a curt "we're IMC" to those.. which is usually followed by a climb or descent or turn heading X instruction
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Reminds me of a VFR departure I made from Palo Alto Airport (PAO). I could see a low cloud layer on the other side of San Francisco Bay, but from the ground, it looked like I could climb over it without entering the class B above. However, in reality I had to climb to 3,700 to be a thousand feet above the cloud tops, which was closer to the 4,000-foot floor of the bravo than I like to be. I was monitoring that ATC sector, and I heard the controller call me as traffic to an airliner. When he said he wasn't talking to me, the tone in his voice was one he might have used if I had run over his favorite pet with my car, so it was apparent that he thought I was in IMC without a clearance. However, the airline pilot eventually reported that I was in sight, and then added, "He is above the clouds," to which the controller replied "Excellent!"

Later, he asked the airline guy where the edge of the cloud deck was, to which he replied "FRNNY," which I assumed was enough information to let the controller know that I had climbed in VFR conditions.

Maybe I should have called ATC and given a PIREP on conditions where I was and had been, but I have noticed that when I depart the Bay Area on flight following, they tend to give me a much more circuitous routing than I had planned. (It's odd, because when I'm arriving, they tend to give me a more direct routing than I planned.)
 
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Zeldman said:
I received a resume once that included a line stating, ''I am a 500 hour pilot but I fly like a 1000 hour pilot''.

Ok, what does that mean since the job description stated that 1200 hours minimum was required.??
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He applied for a job with me too! :)
 
Ed Haywood said:
These days it would be pretty easy to just plug the tail number into Flight Aware.
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For each log book entry that may date months or even years in the past? Who has the time for that?
 
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