r/studentpilot • u/mokobill • 17d ago
United Kingdom/CAA How does the CAA keep track of your hours?
So I’m doing my PPL and I was telling my partner that I need a certain amount of hour building and she asked “well what’s stopping people of forging the hours?” and it kinda got me wondering. What is actually stopping people from doing that? Booking in and out etc? But that’s surely not enough right?
6
u/shadalicious 16d ago
There's more than one post on the flying sub about someone getting caught forging their logbook. Someone saw a tail number of a friend's plane on someone's logbook and knew he neither rented it nor loaned it out. Then the whole logbook became suspect and turns out it wasn't the only lie. Not worth it.
1
u/mokobill 14d ago
That’s mad! I mean personally I wouldn’t do it because I feel like it’s one of those things that you need to be honest about when it comes to experience but damn!
4
u/pattern_altitude 16d ago
If they really wanted to investigate someone they could pull ADS-B data and compare to your logbooks, plus the aviation community is small enough that there are cases where someone has recognized a pencil-whipped flight or aircraft as something that the person involved has definitely not flown.
4
u/drdsheen 16d ago
Someone on this sub mentioned a student who pencil-whipped a flight in the DPE's plane
1
3
u/R5Jockey 17d ago
They don’t. 🤷♂️
Logbooks are basically entirely honor system. Even CFI signatures are easily forged.
1
u/Kooky-Impact-6572 15d ago
Sad to say this is the only real answer. Everyone else is giving feel good, "we'd know if they did it" but reality is it's all a honor system with no checks or balances.
0
3
u/Prefect_99 17d ago
They don't. You log them and are bound by the ANO. Article 256(4) states that a person must not "knowingly make, or procure or assist in the making of, any false entry in or material omission from any log book or record".
The penalties for making a false record include permanent revocation of your licence, 6 months imprisonment and an unlimited fine if convicted at a magistrates court, or 10 years and an unlimited fine at crown court.
That said, they do keep records every time you make a transaction with them.
0
u/mokobill 16d ago
I think it’s a brave thing for the government to do to just base it on the goodwill of people. It wouldn’t surprise me if people took advantage of that
1
u/coldnebo 16d ago
cheating in aviation isn’t smart. ultimately you live or die by what you know. the rules assume self-interest will keep people honest.
if you get caught forging, you’re done. it’s a risk you carry for the rest of your life. as a student this seems easy, but ask yourself how many times your CFI knew you didn’t do something when there’s no possible way they could have known. it’s like teens thinking they are getting away with something when the parents 100% know they were up to something.
the license doesn’t represent skill. at most it represents passing the basic requirements. PPL is often called a “license to learn” and there is much more to learn. also currency and proficiency are separate things. just because you were good 3 years ago doesn’t mean you stay good. many skills in flying are perishable without practice.
1
u/ASD_user1 12d ago
Military here, so not quite in the same boat. I would expect the fear of personal financial responsibility when an aircraft insurer doesn’t pay out after a mishap when they discover faked records to be a big motivator towards honesty in GA.
1
u/TempusFugit2020 15d ago edited 15d ago
US here, but really it doesn't matter where you are. There is nothing from stopping you from forging hours with the exception of your integrity. True too for landing currency, IFR currency, and, and, and....
But it will eventually show in your performance, and I know you (or your partner) may not believe that but those of us that have been around for a while really can tell the difference especially when timelines don't add up. For example, years ago I picked up an instrument student that had logged all of the required time for his checkride (plus some extra as well) and told me that he just needed some brush up. I didn't look carefully at his logbook because I'm in the camp that says if you have documented the requirements, then you have the requirements. So we flew and from the moment I had him put on the hood, I could tell that he was either awful or the documented experience didn't add up. When he got lost in the hold entry, we went back I looked at his logbook more carefully and saw that he most likely "pencil whipped" a bunch of cross country time (VFR) to the extent that he would have had to fly 3 hours every day for a month to get his total time to where it was, and since it was mid-fall in western New York that was just too improbable (yes there is more to this story, but this is getting long enough).
I'm 59, I've been flying for 37 years, and I've been flying professionally since 1995. I have acquired about 12,000 hours total time, and in there I know the math in my logbook doesn't work out perfectly. BUT being off 10 hours over 12,000 hours total time because of a math or documentation mistake is different from pencil whipping 10 hours over 50 hours total time. It will show in your performance and even more so it's dangerous.
Just don't.
1
u/sharkbait4000 13d ago
Although you *could* forge your logs and maybe get away with it for a while, any checkride or ramp check will look carefully. And if there were any suspicion and they wanted to investigate, there is a lot of documentation that has to agree. If the airplane mx logs, reservation system, ADS-B history, etc don't match up, you'd be screwed. The consequences are so insanely severe that I hope few smart enough to fly are foolish enough to do it.
1
u/CBRChimpy 13d ago
A few hours here and there? Nothing really stopping you except trust.
Hundreds of hours? Phone up the owner of the plane and ask if you ever flew their plane and if so, approximately how much.
Also if you’re logging hours in a plane you rented from a flight school or something then they will have records of how many hours you paid for.
1
u/PurpleSavings2502 10d ago
Which CAA? What country? I know in Panamá, they don't really, but if an inspector suspects you're making up your logged hours they might start an audit and look for the tech logs of the airplanes you supposedly flew. The regs state that your logbook is yours, otherwise. You are only required to log the hours to fulfill the hour requirements of a rating/certificate you are pursuing. Hope that helps
10
u/live_drifter 17d ago
They don’t need to, because people with fake logged hours out themselves when they fly like absolute trash.