I wanted to take my parents on an aerial tour, so I took a CFI friend who works at a local mom&pop school on a practice flight on that route day before the trip. When we landed he almost tripled the flight hours on both his and my logbook and signed it! He said the chances of getting caught are almost zero and said almost all airline pilots lie about their hours in some ways(???). However, I just don’t like what’s written on my logbook and extra dual received hours I never received. What should I do? Should I green it out(or put single line and initial) and correct or just leave it is and hope that log will never get questioned?
I would leave it in your logbook, and call the nearest FAA FSDO and report him. After their investigation is complete, which would include them reviewing your logbook, I would correct it.
Pilots do not lie about their hours. I never have and I do not know anybody who has. We take such things very seriously and always strive to be as accurate as possible. Somebody who lies like this is an embarrassment to the profession and has business being up in the air.
What he is doing is dangerous. Let’s say you train with him and he continues to do this. There will come a point when on paper, you have met the experience requirements, but have you really? Are you truly safe when half of your flight time is a lie? This is a disservice to us all.
Do us all a favor and report him before he gets hired at an airline under false pretenses.
The safest thing to do is to discuss this with your local FSDO and do as they say.
You could, of course, attempt to confront your friend and allow them the opportunity to do the right thing and fix the entry, but either way their comment about, “everyone does it,” is enough for me. The FAA needs to know about this person so they can address them accordingly.
Kevin,
You are the one responsible for what goes in your logbook. The fact that he falsified your book I would take personally. Can you imagine who else’s logbooks has false hours now? I would absolutely correct yours and if you feel comfortable, bring it up to the local FSDO and his boss at the flight school. That’s a very serious offense. Safety comes with experience. If he is cutting corners and not really getting the hours he says he is, he is a risk to everyone he flies with.
I have met hundreds of instructors through ATP and my time flying at local flight schools and I have never once heard or seen someone inflating their hours like that. The fact that he came right out and said that means he has clearly been doing it awhile.
I’m going to chime in with the others. Totally unacceptable and no, not everyone does it and even if they did, that doesn’t make it right. One of the requirements for earning an Airline Transport Pilot certificate (the one you need to fly for the airlines) is “must be of good moral character”. I think we all can agree that falsifying your logbook doesn’t qualify.
That all said I’m not a huge fan of ratting others out (we’re all responsible for our own behavior) without at least giving them the opportunity to self correct. I’d speak with them and ask them again to correct their “mistake”. If they refuse I’d then let them know you will be contacting the FSDO. They’ll probably begrudgingly comply. Regardless you wouldn’t catch me flying with this fool again.
It’s funny that this topic came up so recently, as I have become quite suspicious of some of the pilots I fly with and even some friends at other companies. Aviation is largely, in many ways, an honor system. I find it disgraceful that any pilot would falsify logbook entries. I have not been able to prove it with any of these pilots, but I also do not intend to dive further into it as I do not want to be involved. They will get what’s coming to them at some point.
Right? I checked if someone else posted similar situation in the past before posting, but all I found was how to fix logbook correctly if incorrect entries were made by mistake.
Thank you all for your replies. I considered what Adam suggested earlier, but decided to consult FSDO because I discovered more and don’t like what I found.
Kevin,
No matter what its a good lesson for you moving forward, the importance of protecting what goes in your logbook. You’re responsible for it being accurate, clean and correct. I learned later than most to not just hand my logbook over to my CFI during my private and had a lot of mistakes to clean up later on. I recommend you filling everything out with an erasable pen, then just let the CFI sign the remarks section.
-Hannah
Although this matter is already being resolved via the FSDO, I will add another option.
Talk to the owner of the flight school. Pencil whipping a log book is never ok. It can also screw up the books of that flight school (what you logged vs what they charged). So they have both a certificate and money issue related to this CFIs fraudulent behavior which should make them want to resolve it. If not, you can always go to the FSDO after.
I still take pics of the Tach/Hobbs pre and post flight to double check my logbook. Like renting a car, I usually take pics if I see some airworthy but weird tireware, hangar rash, or other issues (I didn’t do this often when flying every day as student / CFI). This would come in handy to prove something is off.
So depending on the school/management I would consider going to them rather than the FSDO.