“Time Building Partner”

RyanB

RyanB

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I am not one to make these kind of threads very often, but I have been seeing a trend on various Facebook groups and platforms where someone is looking for a “time building partner”.

Often times it includes an enticing split price in a cheap airplane (150 or 172). The problem is, I can just about guarantee the flying partner isn’t under the foggles the whole time, under what constitutes the need for a second (safety) pilot and they’re both just logging PIC simultaneously, while sharing expenses.

It seems to be a common theme nowadays, and frankly just isn’t a legal way of building time. Thoughts?
 
I think is a valid observation.

One person I knew in the way back was always complaining what a PITA it was to fly his time building IFR 152 hours on end under the foggles with his safety pilot sitting next to him. He sold it not long after he landed a flying gig.

An examiner I was talking to commented that he always looks at the logbook If he sees a high ratio of PIC and safety pilot PIC(you know what I mean) he digs a bit.
 
Initial Fix said:
An examiner I was talking to commented that he always looks at the logbook If he sees a high ratio of PIC and safety pilot PIC(you know what I mean) he digs a bit.
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What do you think he'd do if he found a lot of it? I'd specifically be curious how these guys will do in an airline interview when their logbook gets audited.
 
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RyanB said:
What do you think he'd do if he found a lot of it? I'd specifically be curious how these guys will do in an airline interview when their logbook gets audited.
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It was during my ifr ride a few decades ago. So memory is fuzzy. From what’s left of that memory, he would overtly question the time and if it was real. I think he declined doing a checkride at one point

It would be interesting to hear how an airline would review and ask about the time.
 
I see the same trend on FB.
I have long suspected those are dubious arrangements.
But hey, when you're interviewing for a job it's not like they're going to ask for your log book AND anyone else's you flew with, and the receipts for the time you had the airplane, and a print out of the ADS-B track to find out if you're being honest about hours, right?
And since aviation is built on honesty... *shrugs*... I would bet there's a lot of double-booking of hours.

I just really hope the airlines are rigorous in their training to ensure that any yahoo pulling those tricks for any appreciable number of hours is outed as an incompetent fraud.
 
Was curious about this and wondered about it in a previous thread some months ago...

One other question/thought since then: Can a student logging PIC and a CFI logging "Dual" count the same flight time towards their individual 1,500 ATP requirement?
 
I suppose that two people (or more) could buy an inexpensive airplane and just split fixed costs. But, the way I see it, to get to 1,500 hours and an an ATP in airplanes, one must log as a minimum 20 hours of private flight instruction and 15 hours of instrument, maybe a dozen hours for a CFI rating, maybe 3 to get a tow endorsement, and 10 or so more for a multi rating. That's 50. Even if you did all 75 instrument hours under a hood it's only 110. Sure, people don't always get everything the moment they are permitted to. But hundreds of hours would surely send up red flags.

If memory serves there's a letter from the General Counsel on this subject. The two partners (CFIs) lost their certifications and ratings.
 
Initial Fix said:
It was during my ifr ride a few decades ago. So memory is fuzzy. From what’s left of that memory, he would overtly question the time and if it was real. I think he declined doing a checkride at one point
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And while an examiner can’t make his own rules on a checkride, there’s nothing to prevent him from declining a checkride if the time looks questionable.
 
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I guess you either walk the walk or you don’t. Can you tell the difference between a 100 or 200 hour pilot?
 
RyanB said:
I am not one to make these kind of threads very often, but I have been seeing a trend on various Facebook groups and platforms where someone is looking for a “time building partner”.

Often times it includes an enticing split price in a cheap airplane (150 or 172). The problem is, I can just about guarantee the flying partner isn’t under the foggles the whole time, under what constitutes the need for a second (safety) pilot and they’re both just logging PIC simultaneously, while sharing expenses.

It seems to be a common theme nowadays, and frankly just isn’t a legal way of building time. Thoughts?
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Maybe that's happening, but what would be the point? You don't need a partner to log 2x the time you actually fly. All such a scheme would add is a witness to your malfeasance.
 
In the euphemism olympics, "time building partner" is second only to "netflix and chill".
 
If legal then it's legal. Kinda like using the tax code to pay the bare minimum.
 
RyanB said:
I am not one to make these kind of threads very often, but I have been seeing a trend on various Facebook groups and platforms where someone is looking for a “time building partner”.

Often times it includes an enticing split price in a cheap airplane (150 or 172). The problem is, I can just about guarantee the flying partner isn’t under the foggles the whole time, under what constitutes the need for a second (safety) pilot and they’re both just logging PIC simultaneously, while sharing expenses.

It seems to be a common theme nowadays, and frankly just isn’t a legal way of building time. Thoughts?
Click to expand...

How do you know they were not under the foggles?
 
RyanB said:
You can’t tell me they are for hundreds of hours. Read between the lines, bud.
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I don’t “read between the lines” or play “what if”

Unless you’re in the airplane you really have zero clue what you’re talking about.

For pilots building hours and understanding the value of BOTH VMC and IMC ops, no foggles and licking windows the blowing their money and getting less out of it.
 
I don't care if two pilots want to pair up and falsify their logbooks.

What drives me nuts is the choosing-beggars that constantly want rides for pets, friends, themselves, or are "oh so close to 121 mins"
 
schmookeeg said:
I don't care if two pilots want to pair up and falsify their logbooks.

What drives me nuts is the choosing-beggars that constantly want rides for pets, friends, themselves, or are "oh so close to 121 mins"
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If someone is acting as safety pilot there is nothing “falsify” about it

As for the second part, what??
 
You mean people have bogus hours in their logbook?

When it comes down to it, this has been played for many years. Maybe they do stay under the foggles, maybe they don’t. Only two people know the truth. But everyone knows it happens, Flight schools encourage it, CFIs and DPEs know the deal. But it just has been part of the honor system we live by. And us honest pilots don’t want the FAA nosing around anymore than they need to, so the whole time building scam stays as it is.
 
TommyG said:
You mean people have bogus hours in their logbook?

When it comes down to it, this has been played for many years. Maybe they do stay under the foggles, maybe they don’t. Only two people know the truth. But everyone knows it happens, Flight schools encourage it, CFIs and DPEs know the deal. But it just has been part of the honor system we live by. And us honest pilots don’t want the FAA nosing around anymore than they need to, so the whole time building scam stays as it is.
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But it doesn’t work

I mean if you’re a crazy good sky god mayyybe sure, but if you have no experience and fake a ton of your few hours, you’re just going to get crushed at your first big boy job training / interview (if it has you in a plane or sim)


Thinking back I heard of guys fudging a tenth or something if they just hardly missed something, but faking notable chunks of time I just never knew of anyone who did it when I was coming up, or later on as I’ve remained active as a CFI.

*I will note I don’t work at a “cadet” mill and have, nor do I desire, anything to do with those
 
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RyanB said:
You can’t tell me they are for hundreds of hours. Read between the lines, bud.
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Some of us actually put ourselves through the foggles misery. I actually welcome the opportunity since we do so much day VFR flying for photo work, and I always have room to sharpen my instrument skills.
 
billsgs126 said:
But hundreds of hours would surely send up red flags.
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Doubt it. There's entire programs built on this.

I'm sure that there are plenty of people who don't bother with the hood, though... Just like there are plenty of airline crews who didn't have one pilot go on oxygen above FL350 prior to 2020 (when it changed to FL410).

I'm sure questions get asked in some cases, but most people who would do that know the rules well enough to lie and get away with it, and if they didn't have the hood on, they already lied, so...

billsgs126 said:
If memory serves there's a letter from the General Counsel on this subject. The two partners (CFIs) lost their certifications and ratings.
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There was one case where a pair of CFIs were caught logging the same flights and logging as dual given/received but they never signed each others' logbooks and such which made it not count as "instruction". And yes, I believe their certs were revoked.
 
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Counterpoint. Many of us on here have our thoughts about the 1500 hour requirement in the first place because people are just toodling around for 1500 hours. They take a few hundred hours to get the CFI, then toodle around with students the rest of the way.

While this cost-sharing model can certainly involve a lot of toodling as well, it does encourage some actual big boy flying.

I am in a community hangar that also houses a flight school and a few rental planes. Last year, two of the timebuilding early-20-somethings started doing some of this cost-sharing thing with one of the rentals. Well, they decided with all the money they were saving to take a couple multi-day trips. First, they went up to party in New Orleans. They had to do all the flight planning for that trip, actually look at weather and routes and fuel stops and FBO options etc, and learned all about the special use airspace along the FL panhandle. That trip was apparently a wild success, so a few weeks later they decided go to Atlanta. They were a bit more cavalier with their planning on that one, and gave themselves a scare playing with a good old Dixie cold front.

Regardless of who was actually on the yoke or if either was truly under the hood, they both probably learned more in those two flights than in their hundreds of hours shepherding 8-hour primary students around the practice area.
 
RyanB said:
I am not one to make these kind of threads very often, but I have been seeing a trend on various Facebook groups and platforms where someone is looking for a “time building partner”.

Often times it includes an enticing split price in a cheap airplane (150 or 172). The problem is, I can just about guarantee the flying partner isn’t under the foggles the whole time, under what constitutes the need for a second (safety) pilot and they’re both just logging PIC simultaneously, while sharing expenses.

It seems to be a common theme nowadays, and frankly just isn’t a legal way of building time. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Interesting!

I haven't seen this much, but I also don't look for it online. For me, as hard as I worked to just get my license, I'm not trying to jeopardize it by lying about time building. It does the most harm to myself. I'm at the stage where I plan to do some time-building, but only with pilots I know, that attended the same school I did (received the same quality of training and were taught by the same instructors).

We recently had a convo about planning a trip to Fredericksburg, and I mentioned about planning a VFR route around some busy airspaces. He is a commercial pilot and he said he would file an IFR flight plan. I was like..."well how much PIC time am I actually gonna get if I'm not an instrument-rated pilot?". He replied "I'll be under the hood". lol I laughed and said "well you gonna be foggling-it for a while, because I'm getting at least an hour from this trip lol." Of course we are being lighthearted about it, but there is a real concern that we both obtain hours fairly/evenly, and keeping in mind about my limits regarding pro-rate share.

I'm not sure what other pilots are doing and how they are building their time...whether they are honest or not. I know that I plan on being honest, and that benefits me and my experience.
 
These are good points. My son is time building and mentioned this same type of set up and wondered how in the world they could get away with it.

He also asked how he is able to log multi PIC time when we are flying and he is flying from the right seat in the bigger plane. In our case, I told him it's simple. I don't log the time. He's sole manipulator of the controls.

Integrity is like virginity. Once you lose it, you don't get it back.
 
k9medic said:
He also asked how he is able to log multi PIC time when we are flying and he is flying from the right seat in the bigger plane. In our case, I told him it's simple. I don't log the time. He's sole manipulator of the controls.
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If he's multi-engine rated, why don't you let him sit in the left seat?
 
When he's flying the 310Q he does. In the 421C my wife will not let him and she calles the shots when she's sitting in the back. Wants him to have "more time."

I've been married 25 years, and know better than to press that test button.
 
RyanB said:
I am not one to make these kind of threads very often, but I have been seeing a trend on various Facebook groups and platforms where someone is looking for a “time building partner”.

Often times it includes an enticing split price in a cheap airplane (150 or 172). The problem is, I can just about guarantee the flying partner isn’t under the foggles the whole time, under what constitutes the need for a second (safety) pilot and they’re both just logging PIC simultaneously, while sharing expenses.

It seems to be a common theme nowadays, and frankly just isn’t a legal way of building time. Thoughts?
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I follow. When people are looking for a time-building partner, I don't too often see them saying that the time will be 100% shared or how they figure out what time will be logged by both and what time will not. I do see posts suggesting that people might not understand the requirements for logging PIC as a safety pilot, but that doesn't automatically lead me to assume the OP is proposing something contrary to the regulations.

I see many more posts suggesting sharing expenses contrary to 61.113 than sharing PIC time contrary to 61.51.
 
k9medic said:
He also asked how he is able to log multi PIC time when we are flying and he is flying from the right seat in the bigger plane. In our case, I told him it's simple. I don't log the time. He's sole manipulator of the controls.
Click to expand...
Does the bigger plane have a limitation on where the PIC sits? If not, I would say that each pilot logs their own PIC time based on the otherwise applicable rules.
 
billsgs126 said:
I suppose that two people (or more) could buy an inexpensive airplane and just split fixed costs. But, the way I see it, to get to 1,500 hours and an an ATP in airplanes, one must log as a minimum 20 hours of private flight instruction and 15 hours of instrument, maybe a dozen hours for a CFI rating, maybe 3 to get a tow endorsement, and 10 or so more for a multi rating. That's 50. Even if you did all 75 instrument hours under a hood it's only 110. Sure, people don't always get everything the moment they are permitted to. But hundreds of hours would surely send up red flags.

If memory serves there's a letter from the General Counsel on this subject. The two partners (CFIs) lost their certifications and ratings.
Click to expand...
I think you are recalling the case in which two CFIs logged logged PIC for over 200 flights together. They claimed they were just giving each other instruction on all of them. The FAA called "foul."
 
k9medic said:
When he's flying the 310Q he does. In the 421C my wife will not let him and she calles the shots when she's sitting in the back. Wants him to have "more time."

I've been married 25 years, and know better than to press that test button.
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It wouldn't occur to me to let a passenger "call the shots" about how to operate the aircraft, but I'm also happily divorced.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Does the bigger plane have a limitation on where the PIC sits? If not, I would say that each pilot logs their own PIC time based on the otherwise applicable rules.
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No, there is no limitation on where the PIC sits.


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