PIC Time

kimberlyanne546 said:
This sounds EXACTLY like what my instructor did when I cheated on him. He pretty much told me he would fire me. So I never cheated again and stayed with him.
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Was he your husband? If not, he's being sort of a jerk, because in most cases, you ain't married to your CFI.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
This sounds EXACTLY like what my instructor did when I cheated on him. He pretty much told me he would fire me. So I never cheated again and stayed with him.
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IMO any instructor who is so afraid of having another instructor fly with his student should be fired himself.
 
Ron Levy said:
Do you have any examples of that happening? I have never seen an FAA enforcement action resulting from a pilot being unable to remember the name of the person acting as PIC while the subject pilot was flying without a medical. Flying without a qualified person there, yes, that's been the subject of actions, but not just being unable to remember the person's name. And unlike the requirement in 61.51 to log the name of your safety pilot for simulated instrument time, there is no regulatory requirement to log the name of the person acting as PIC.
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Yes. Bent metal. Inspector checks the logs. Sees PIC time during a period when the medical was expired that was years before the accident. Pilot can no longer remember for certain who he was flying with for all of the several flights during that period. He can give a vague recollection, but he can't recall for certain who on each flight. So, now the issue is, can he prove to the FAA's satisfaction that he really had a qualified person on board as PIC.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
This sounds EXACTLY like what my instructor did when I cheated on him. He pretty much told me he would fire me. So I never cheated again and stayed with him.
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You got a second opinion. That does not sound like cheating to me. That sounds like getting a different view on something. One of my biggest mistakes has been sticking with the same CFI(I) for all my training. You learn one way to do something, and it may or not work for you. I have been lucky in I have gotten a lot out of forums like this and so have changed things somewhat that seem to work well for me. I am doing my commercial now, and for a number of reasons will be doing it in a twin, so now I am going for my ME first, and this is with a different CFI. I have flown with him twice and unlike my CFI(I) he is much into doing things a certain way. I am looking foward to it, though I know from past experience he is going to criticize almost everything I do.

Doug
 
Threatening to fire the employer, is a really bad idea in any business venture.

I've talked to a couple of instructors who've had to dump a student for various reasons, but flying with another instructor wasn't one of them.

McDonalds can't fire you for going to Burger King. LOL.
 
PPC1052 said:
Yes. Bent metal. Inspector checks the logs. Sees PIC time during a period when the medical was expired that was years before the accident. Pilot can no longer remember for certain who he was flying with for all of the several flights during that period. He can give a vague recollection, but he can't recall for certain who on each flight. So, now the issue is, can he prove to the FAA's satisfaction that he really had a qualified person on board as PIC.
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You say this is an enforcement action currently in progress?
 
I've never had a student so good that they couldn't learn from almost any decent instructor. I'd encourage them to fly with anybody they think they might like, on the condition that they tell me anything good that they learned so I can use it too.;)

Greg Bockelman said:
IMO any instructor who is so afraid of having another instructor fly with his student should be fired himself.
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Stupidest thing I have heard! Your instructor has some issues. I would never tell my student they could never go with someone else. I actually encourage it. If you can learn some thing from someone else, by all means go, especially if you are motivated and want to learn. I can't stand students that are not motivated and think this is just something cool they really really want to do.
 
He bragged about being the best and how he has NEVER had a student of his have EVEN ONE incident after over 10,000 hours of primary instruction over his lifetime. I asked "how do you know that" and he said "because I keep in touch with all of my students."

Laughing my a$$ off now. It has been over a year now and I've never seen an email or phone call from the man. I long ago switched where I rent my plane and I will see his car or him often but he is busy with a student and has never said hello unless I did first. One of his students is in my class (who I took up for a Bay Tour). That student has complained about some of the same things I went through. Never EVER going back to him.

Correction: he did email me, once, to let me know that the $49 per hour rate for primary was only because he had to compete with the other schools and that I would now be charged $75 per hour if I used him for BFR or consulting. LOL no thanks.
 
kimberlyanne546 said:
He bragged about being the best and how he has NEVER had a student of his have EVEN ONE incident after over 10,000 hours of primary instruction over his lifetime.
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The bragging in and of itself is an excellent reason to get rid of him. As in, "I'm leaving now; is there anything I owe you for your time today?"

He's basically telling you he's so good he has nothing to learn. Ask people who are widely known as excellent instructors; even some the nationally famous ones who write books and articles for the major flying periodicals. There's a good chance they'll tell you they still learn new things from their students.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Sounds more like a hypothetical to prove his point.

But I can almost see it happening in certain situations (also hypothetical).
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Me, too, but only if there are other things in there to raise the Inspector's suspicions besides the simple fact of time logged during the period of medical disqualification without recording the actual PIC's name.
 
Ron Levy said:
You say this is an enforcement action currently in progress?
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The investigation is complete. I am just waiting for the enforcement action. The issue came up exactly as I described. As noted above, there are other issues, too.
 
Greg Bockelman said:
IMO any instructor who is so afraid of having another instructor fly with his student should be fired himself.
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+1.

As a newbie, I want my students to fly with others. Most flight schools under 61, and ALL of them under 141 have a student get periodically evaluated by a senior CFI, both as a QA check on the primary CFI and also to give the student alternate perspectives.

I learned a lot from hearing people I fly with telling me about other instructors. Some of it I steal for my own use. And sometimes I hold my peace, because "my" way isn't the "only" way. Only once did I tell a student "don't do that any more" because what another instructor taught him scared me.
 
TMetzinger said:
+1.

As a newbie, I want my students to fly with others. Most flight schools under 61, and ALL of them under 141 have a student get periodically evaluated by a senior CFI, both as a QA check on the primary CFI and also to give the student alternate perspectives.

I learned a lot from hearing people I fly with telling me about other instructors. Some of it I steal for my own use. And sometimes I hold my peace, because "my" way isn't the "only" way. Only once did I tell a student "don't do that any more" because what another instructor taught him scared me.
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This sounds a lot like what I told the guy I flew on Sunday (from my ground school class):

He was leaving in his Subaru with his wife, they were off to SF for a dinner and a concert. I said to him:

"Now remember. 10 Subaru drivers could tell you 10 different ways to merge on to the freeway and navigate in and out of traffic, all perfectly legal. What I told you about flying today may very well not be the same thing your instructor will one day teach you.... so try to keep that in mind."
 
PPC1052 said:
The investigation is complete. I am just waiting for the enforcement action. The issue came up exactly as I described. As noted above, there are other issues, too.
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Ah -- other issues. When the only issue is not being able to remember who the legal PIC was, let us know.
 
Ron Levy said:
Ah -- other issues. When the only issue is not being able to remember who the legal PIC was, let us know.
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Although, to be fair, many of the technical logging issue we discuss on line only come up in the context of other issues that then lead to a logbook inspection.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Although, to be fair, many of the technical logging issue we discuss on line only come up in the context of other issues that then lead to a logbook inspection.
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Point taken. In any event, if you okay by the rules, I wouldn't worry about this particular issue.
 
My club REQUIRES students to fly with another instructor at certain points in their training.
 
Ron Levy said:
That's SOP in the military and 141 schools, although always with one from inside the organization.
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That's how the club does it, although it's a Part 61 operation.
 
Ron Levy said:
Ah -- other issues. When the only issue is not being able to remember who the legal PIC was, let us know.
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Alright, so I finally put this one to bed. By the time regional counsel became involved, and finally issued their notice of proposed certificate action, they had let the time lapse under the stale complaint rule to complain about the prior flights from way-back-when. They only cited him for the flights in question in which he brought his plane back, and damaged the aircraft in a hard landing because he did not have a properly logged current BFR, and a few other issues that I was able to convince them to drop. So, I have no example of them taking a certificate action against a pilot for logging PIC without a current medical, and not having logged who was the legal PIC. But I can tell you that the FSDO inspector spent a good deal of time investigating those prior flights, and interviewing other pilots to try to verify and/or disprove the the pilot's story that he had other pilots on board that could act, and had agreed to act, as PIC. The risk averse side of me wonders why you would want to log PIC just on the basis that you are the sole manipulator of the controls when you have an expired medical. Just doesn't seem worth it to me.
 
It may not seem worth it to you, but clearly there were a bunch of more serious issues involved in your tale, so I put that one in a totally different category. For those temporarily uncertified medically, this provides an opportunity for them to maintain proficiency and currency so they can just start flying again when the medical issue is resolved, and that is a big deal for many.
 
Ron Levy said:
It may not seem worth it to you, but clearly there were a bunch of more serious issues involved in your tale, so I put that one in a totally different category. For those temporarily uncertified medically, this provides an opportunity for them to maintain proficiency and currency so they can just start flying again when the medical issue is resolved, and that is a big deal for many.
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I am not sure I agree that there were a bunch more serious issues. I am not trying to argue; just pick your brain. With respect to the old flights, there was nothing else-- just the expired medical issue. With respect to the recent flights, it was just an issue of whether a medical was necessary, and no properly logged BFR. Maybe by serious, you mean he bent metal. So you put it all together and it adds up to serious. As Mark noted, these issues usually come to the FAA's attention when incidents such as this occur.

As far as keeping current, no one says you can't fly, can't be the sole manipulator of the controls, and thereby maintain proficiency. The question is whether to log it as PIC. I can tell you definitively from seeing it personally that if you havean incident, and you have logged PIC when you have no current medical, at a minimum, you risk the FAA digging deeper into that issue. Of course, all of this is much ado about nothing if you have the acting PIC sign your log.
 
PPC1052 said:
I am not sure I agree that there were a bunch more serious issues. I am not trying to argue; just pick your brain. With respect to the old flights, there was nothing else-- just the expired medical issue. With respect to the recent flights, it was just an issue of whether a medical was necessary, and no properly logged BFR. Maybe by serious, you mean he bent metal. So you put it all together and it adds up to serious. As Mark noted, these issues usually come to the FAA's attention when incidents such as this occur.
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Breaking a plane while acting as PIC without meeting the requirements of 61.56 is serious stuff, and clearly they're busting his chops on that. Being unable to remember who was acting as PIC when you logged PIC time is simply not a regulatory violation (they don't require that the way they do the name of a safety pilot for simulated instrument time), and as you said, they are not pursuing that issue.

As far as keeping current, no one says you can't fly, can't be the sole manipulator of the controls, and thereby maintain proficiency. The question is whether to log it as PIC.
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It won't count for recent experience if you don't, and that is an important issue to the pilot concerned.

I can tell you definitively from seeing it personally that if you havean incident, and you have logged PIC when you have no current medical, at a minimum, you risk the FAA digging deeper into that issue.
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Agreed. But since the regs don't require logging the real PIC's name, burden of proof is on them to show that there wasn't a legal PIC aboard, rather than the burden being on you to prove there was.

Of course, all of this is much ado about nothing if you have the acting PIC sign your log.
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You can have the guy at the fuel pump sign your log if you want, but it's not required. Even if the FAA were to present evidence that you didn't have anyone qualified with you (hard to prove a negative), even having the name of the individual would, I think, be sufficient to refute the FAA's contention, without needing a signature. As I said, the regs only require the name of a safety pilot, not his/her signature.
 
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