student pilot logging time in public use aircraft

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bigheavy69

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bigheavy69
i am a student pilot initially pursuing my private helicopter certification. (commercial later) i work for a county mosquito control and also assist our sheriff's office on LEO ops. We fly public use (non-certified aircraft). Can i log my mission times towards my 40 hr, cross-countrys, etc, prior to taking check ride?
 
(a) Are you the sole manipulator of the controls?

(b) Is the "real" pilot a CFI?

If you're ever being paid to fly that helicopter solo, you're not legal. See 14 CFR 61.89.
 
Before you answer this question, be aware that 'public use' airplanes are a sort of strange animal.

For one thing, you don't necessarily have to have an FAA pilot's license at all to fly one!

Nor does a public use airplane need to certified as airworthy by the FAA.

I know there have been logging controversies about logging of public use aircraft for FAA purposes, but I'm not current in that subject.

It's been over 20 years since I was heavily involved in the creation of this fleet of public use aircraft:

 
If you don't have your private,the other pilot has to be a CFI,your getting a lot of non luggable time.
 
MAKG1 said:
(a) Are you the sole manipulator of the controls?

(b) Is the "real" pilot a CFI?

If you're ever being paid to fly that helicopter solo, you're not legal. See 14 CFR 61.89.
Click to expand...

Yes to A & B..........only being paid as a part of my full time job. i get paid whether i fly or not.

thanks
 
The Flight Standards position is that per Public Law 103-411 and § 40102 of Title 49 of the United States Code, a public aircraft may not be used for the purpose of receiving pilot training for the furtherance of a certificate, rating, or recency of experience, and the time cannot be logged. So, it may be good training and good experience, but it isn't loggable for FAA purposes.
 
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bigheavy69 said:
Yes to A & B..........only being paid as a part of my full time job. i get paid whether i fly or not.

thanks
Click to expand...

In addition to Ron's issue, if you're on the clock, you need a commercial certificate. You might get away with arguing it's "furthering a business," but that requires a private certificate. Student (and sport) pilots can't do that.

And your department may not like it if you fly it off the clock.
 
This "public aircraft" talk sounds like a bunch of shady...

airamerica.gif


...type stuff.
 
MAKG1 said:
In addition to Ron's issue, if you're on the clock, you need a commercial certificate.
Click to expand...
You don't need any certificate at all to fly a public aircraft, for hire or otherwise (at least by the FAA's rules -- other than military pilots in military aircraft, governmental agencies still usually require it). But what the OP is doing is still not loggable for the OP's Private Pilot requirements even if the PIC is a current CFI-RH.
 
Ron Levy said:
The Flight Standards position is that per Public Law 103-411 and § 40102 of Title 49 of the United States Code, a public aircraft may not be used for the purpose of receiving pilot training for the furtherance of a certificate, rating, or recency of experience, and the time cannot be logged. So, it may be good training and good experience, but it isn't loggable for FAA purposes.
Click to expand...

Does that appear anywhere in Part 61?


Mike
 
Ron Levy said:
The Flight Standards position is that per Public Law 103-411 and § 40102 of Title 49 of the United States Code, a public aircraft may not be used for the purpose of receiving pilot training for the furtherance of a certificate, rating, or recency of experience, and the time cannot be logged. So, it may be good training and good experience, but it isn't loggable for FAA purposes.
Click to expand...

Can you share with us the applicable written position from Flight Standards?

Just curious.

Mike
 
MikeELP said:
Can you share with us the applicable written position from Flight Standards?
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It's in the FAQ file, to which we can't get access any more (unless you'll accept the full statement from the last public version of which I do have a copy). You could ask your local FSDO, as they can access it and verify what I said, although I doubt you'll get it in writing even from them. Beyond that, if you really want something in writing, you'll probably have to write to the Chief Counsel and wait four months for an answer.
 
MAKG1 said:
In addition to Ron's issue, if you're on the clock, you need a commercial certificate. You might get away with arguing it's "furthering a business," but that requires a private certificate. Student (and sport) pilots can't do that.

And your department may not like it if you fly it off the clock.
Click to expand...

Not so fast, he can't log it, but OTOH, he doesn't need an FAA Airman's Cert to fly it. The FAAhas no jurisdiction over Public Use aircraft, same as military pilots don't need a cert from the FAA.
 
Ron Levy said:
It's in the FAQ file, to which we can't get access any more (unless you'll accept the full statement from the last public version of which I do have a copy). You could ask your local FSDO, as they can access it and verify what I said, although I doubt you'll get it in writing even from them. Beyond that, if you really want something in writing, you'll probably have to write to the Chief Counsel and wait four months for an answer.
Click to expand...

I'll take that as a NO to my previous question.

Thanks.

Mike
 
MikeELP said:
I'll take that as a NO to my previous question.
Click to expand...
I'll that that as a statement that you aren't interested in making any effort to verify my statement yourself -- not even just picking up the phone tomorrow and calling your local FSDO. I'll remember that next time you ask me a question.
 
MAKG1 said:
In addition to Ron's issue, if you're on the clock, you need a commercial certificate.
Click to expand...


I don't think that's the case. Unless things have changed since the 90's you don't need any sort of FAA pilot certificate to pilot a public use aircraft.
 
When all else fails, read the instructions:

Sec. 61.51 — Pilot logbooks:

(j) Aircraft requirements for logging flight time. For a person to log flight time, the time must be acquired in an aircraft that is identified as an aircraft under §61.5(b), and is—

(1) An aircraft of U.S. registry with either a standard or special airworthiness certificate;

(2) An aircraft of foreign registry with an airworthiness certificate that is approved by the aviation authority of a foreign country that is a Member State to the Convention on International Civil Aviation Organization;

(3) A military aircraft under the direct operational control of the U.S. Armed Forces; or

(4) A public aircraft under the direct operational control of a Federal, State, county, or municipal law enforcement agency, if the flight time was acquired by the pilot while engaged on an official law enforcement flight for a Federal, State, County, or Municipal law enforcement agency.
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Sounds like the OP can log his time, at least the LEO related time.
 
JimNtexas said:
When all else fails, read the instructions:

Sec. 61.51 — Pilot logbooks:



Sounds like the OP can log his time, at least the LEO related time.
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Pretty sure he has to be a rated pilot to log that time. I could be wrong but that just allows pilots to legally log time in an aircraft that isn't regulated by the FAA. I have looked into logging time in public use and restricted former military aircraft. I don't currently have the helicopter rating and the answer I got from the FSDO was I can't log it for the purposes of a rating. After I get the rating no problem. Also our former mil birds have limitations prohibiting training for a rating listed on the certification paperwork from the transition to civilian use.
 
That's black letter FARs, not some double secret FAQ from 1904.

Having said that, I know from my own experience that there can be stipulations associated with what kind of activities that can be conducted with a particular public use aircraft.

On the contract I worked for the USAF we required the pilots to be qualified under Part 135 and the maintenance to be conducted IAW with 135, with a few exceptions.

A little Googling shows that in 1994 the government did tighten up on regulation of public use aircraft, I think as a result of some high profile accidents involving this type of operation.
 
JimNtexas said:
That's black letter FARs, not some double secret FAQ from 1904.

Having said that, I know from my own experience that there can be stipulations associated with what kind of activities that can be conducted with a particular public use aircraft.

On the contract I worked for the USAF we required the pilots to be qualified under Part 135 and the maintenance to be conducted IAW with 135, with a few exceptions.

A little Googling shows that in 1994 the government did tighten up on regulation of public use aircraft, I think as a result of some high profile accidents involving this type of operation.
Click to expand...

The restriction has to deal with aircraft (former military) that doesn't have any civilian certification (OH-58 is one) being used for flight training leading to a certification.
 
Ron Levy said:
The Flight Standards position is that per Public Law 103-411 and § 40102 of Title 49 of the United States Code, a public aircraft may not be used for the purpose of receiving pilot training for the furtherance of a certificate, rating, or recency of experience, and the time cannot be logged. So, it may be good training and good experience, but it isn't loggable for FAA purposes.
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense, particularly considering the FAR quoted between these two.

I highlight the "recency of experience" as an absurdity. You're claiming that if you have a FAA cert, and normally fly a public (ie not civil) aircraft, then if you go and rent a 172 after flying 100 hours in the last month, you still have to go and do 3 to/landings for passenger carrying?
 
It sounds to me like the FAR is applicable to someone who has a rating can log that time in a public aircraft. If one is a student trying to log time for a certificate, then they shouldn't be a able to log it because of the reference that Ron cited.
 
I think the law Ron references is intended to preclude a contractor from using public use aircraft in his flight school or renting out seats in it while the public use aircraft is being used for the government.

This is a problem we ran into in the Air Force, both with the business jets and MU-2s we leased for training and testing purposes.

I do not think that law was intended to prevent pilots engaged in legitimate public use operations from logging their time.

Also, I'm pretty certain that a LEO agency can take a non-pilot police officer and train him from zero to hero in a public use airplane, including taking and passing FAA checkrides.
 
He should log it. It's not illegal just to log something. Its only against the rules if you use logged time incorrectly. Log it in a seperate book if you have other logged hours. I know military pilots dont get FAA pilots certificates (unless they do them seperately) while in the military, but they log their time and that time can get converted to FAA logged time. Tons of airline pilots have done that (or something siimilar). Im not familiar with the details. I know they have to pay for their own ATP checkride and take the written, but the military hours count for the hours needed to qualify for the ATP. And the airlines accept those military hours as FAA logable. It seems it would be the same for a pilot working for other government agencies. There surely is a way to convert those hours. There is a complication here in that he is a student, but the military pilots and whoever else is doing it this way ALL started out as students. Seems to me theres gotta be a way.

This is done often enough. Surely there are some pilots on this board that came up the "public use" aircraft way.....military or some other agency that know the details. Then convert those hours to hours accepted by the FAA toward an FAA certificate.
 
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But it is most likely that the regulations of the public use agency require whoever is manipulating the controls to be appropriately rated by that agency.
 
JimNtexas said:
Before you answer this question, be aware that 'public use' airplanes are a sort of strange animal.

For one thing, you don't necessarily have to have an FAA pilot's license at all to fly one!

Nor does a public use airplane need to certified as airworthy by the FAA.

I know there have been logging controversies about logging of public use aircraft for FAA purposes, but I'm not current in that subject.

It's been over 20 years since I was heavily involved in the creation of this fleet of public use aircraft:

Click to expand...

Are those the lears that towed targets for the military?
 
As the OP wanted to thank you all for the lively discussion. My biggest takeaway is this is the grayest of gray areas. Many different interpretations and opinions. Here and elsewhere. Even my local FSDO punted to the Chief Counsel in DC (as Ron suggested).

Although I would like to lean/agree on 'coloradobluesky's analogy of military pilots ability to transfer hours I will err on the side of caution and spend the 15K at a local flight school.
 
sferguson524 said:
Are those the lears that towed targets for the military?
Click to expand...

That's one of their jobs. Pheonix Air operates a fleet of contract aircraft for things like communications, surveilance, jamming, cargo, charter etc.

I work with paramedics that fly in their air ambulance program. They were actually on the flights in the Gulfstreams that brought the Ebola patients here.
 
bigheavy69 said:
As the OP wanted to thank you all for the lively discussion. My biggest takeaway is this is the grayest of gray areas. Many different interpretations and opinions. Here and elsewhere. Even my local FSDO punted to the Chief Counsel in DC (as Ron suggested).

Although I would like to lean/agree on 'coloradobluesky's analogy of military pilots ability to transfer hours I will err on the side of caution and spend the 15K at a local flight school.
Click to expand...
There are regulations which specifically allow crediting of military flight time and training by military pilots and military pilot trainees in military aircraft. And as discussed above, to log the time, the use of the aircraft must be for the intended purpose. Unless one of the intended purposes is providing primary flight training to the organization's non-pilot personnel, I don't see it falling within that exception. But the Chief Counsel gets the final say, and I'll be interested to read the response when you get it.
 
If you can't use public ac to log flight time as a student what about programs such as civil air patrol. Can you log it but it doesn't count towards a rating?
 
sferguson524 said:
Are those the lears that towed targets for the military?
Click to expand...

[BRAG MODE]

Because they have STC'd pylons they can be used for target tow, but the USAF and Air Guard created this fleet primarily to provide ECM capable aircraft for training and testing.

This and other contractors have Lears with the pylons but no jammers that are better suited for target tow.

These airplanes are equipped with a digital radar jammer that was 15 years ahead of its time.

I was never prouder of anything I did in the Air Force than when shortly after we deployed these airplanes one of them caused some super secret tower mounted aircraft radar to damage it's mechanical system trying to lock on to one of these Lears.

The people operating this experimental radar first accused us of using some super secret system on them, and said basically we were cheating because no threat could generate the kind of jamming we could generate! Hehehe.

Of course that was in the mid-90s. Nowadays I think some of the threats have jammers comparable to what we deployed in 1993! :D

[/BRAG MODE]
 
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The issue seems to be the FAA doesnt want state entities (wildlife, recreation, police etc) or Federal entities (Forest Service, BLM, Park Service, law enforcement units etc) creating flight instruction as one of their functions. Frequently law enforcement and maybe others can get military aircraft for free (or discounted) and they have time on their hands, so instruction "happens". I would talk to a DE. If you can find a DE that will accept those hours, and if you are a student they are going to have to be signed off by a CFI to count then it may be doable. However, the FAA seems to have a rule against getting instruction in non-certified aircraft, which apparently is what these aircraft coming from the military to the government entity are. (they dont get the FAA designations when manufactured because they go into military service).

The FAA tends to want the training to occur in FAA training programs, you know, the usual civilian way. Just because the military can do it doesnt mean every Tom Dick and Harry government entity can do it. There is an economic arguement here, the instructors and instruction aircxraft rental community doesnt want those instruction dollars taken away from them. Which I guess is a valid arguement. As usual it comes down to money.

Talk about a complicated issue.



Still, I could see someone getting some hours as SIC or some such (you'd have to have a pilot cert to do that) and explaining to the airline that "these hours were when I was copilot when I worked for the Forest Service (or whoever)" and let the airline count those hours as they see fit. Thats why I suggest "logging" them, for what they are. Ya never know.

Im no expert on this issue (I just cant get to sleep right now)
 
Catalo said:
If you can't use public ac to log flight time as a student what about programs such as civil air patrol. Can you log it but it doesn't count towards a rating?
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CAP aircraft are regular civil aircraft, not public use aircraft. They belong to CAP (a non-profit corporation), not the US government. As such, the public aircraft rules do not apply, and all the regular rules do.
 
coloradobluesky said:
I would talk to a DE. If you can find a DE that will accept those hours, and if you are a student they are going to have to be signed off by a CFI to count then it may be doable.
Click to expand...
It's not up to the individual DPE to interpret these regulations, it's up to the Chief Counsel. A DPE who give practical tests to people who don't meet the FAA's legal requirements is likely to lose his/her designation, and have everyone s/he signed off get called back for reexamination.
 
JimNtexas said:
[BRAG MODE]

Because they have STC'd pylons they can be used for target tow, but the USAF and Air Guard created this fleet primarily to provide ECM capable aircraft for training and testing.

This and other contractors have Lears with the pylons but no jammers that are better suited for target tow.

These airplanes are equipped with a digital radar jammer that was 15 years ahead of its time.

I was never prouder of anything I did in the Air Force than when shortly after we deployed these airplanes one of them caused some super secret tower mounted aircraft radar to damage it's mechanical system trying to lock on to one of these Lears.

The people operating this experimental radar first accused us of using some super secret system on them, and said basically we were cheating because no threat could generate the kind of jamming we could generate! Hehehe.

Of course that was in the mid-90s. Nowadays I think some of the threats have jammers comparable to what we deployed in 1993! :D

[/BRAG MODE]
Click to expand...

I ask because there were a few that looked JUST like that at CRQ back in the mid 90s when i was learning to fly there. I miss those days when a kid could walk all over the ramp without any fear of getting silver bracelets
 
Catalo said:
If you can't use public ac to log flight time as a student what about programs such as civil air patrol. Can you log it but it doesn't count towards a rating?
Click to expand...

CAP aircraft are governed by the FARs, so yes. But CAP has its own regulations about who can use their aircraft to pursue a certificate or rating.

They limit PPL training to certain cadets under normal circumstances, IIRC. But senior members (i.e., non-cadets) can use their aircraft to train for a rating and possibly for CPL. It's been a while so a current member can correct me.

In my opinion, getting into CAP for the sole purpose of getting a PPL on the cheap or even just to fly their aircraft is a bad idea. It isn't a flying club, although some people join with that model in mind. Their aircraft do rent for cheaper than real flying clubs because the costs are subsidized for members. But members are supposed to wear uniforms while flying, take no non-members with rare exception, and train to certain CAP-USAF flight profiles, and can't leave the state without wing commander approval. There are many many many MANY more. People who think it is a flying club soon quit.
 
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Owad1971 said:
Waaaay off topic...But what was the story here? Nice looking Line-up!:yes:
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If you go back in time to the early 80s the Air Force used to have a squadron of T-33's that were used as 'Ducks', i.e. targets for radar intercept training for both GCI controllers and interceptor pilots. I think some of these T-33's carried simple noise jamming pods

Back in the 80s the T-33s were going away and someone got a law passed that allowed the military to lease civil airplanes from the private sector to perform this function. This is about the same time the air defense function was passing from the active USAF to the Air Guard.

The Air Guard was lead on this program, the first contract went to a company called Flight International in Newport News Virgina. They did a pretty good job with this. Some of their Lears were L35's with an internal noise jammer, some were pure 'ducks', these were mostly L24's. This airplanes were based at National Guard bases and had whatever paint job they had when FI bought them.

About 1991 I was assigned to the Air Combat Command staff at Langley AFB Virginia, in the electronic warfare shop. I was the EF-111A current operations staff weenie. I was an electronic warfare officer, not a military pilot.

One day our Colonel came in the office and we had this conversation:

Colonel: "Jim don't you fly those bug smashers at the aero club?".

Jim: "Yes sir, I do".

Colonel: "There's this little contract that the Guard runs that rents bug smashers for some kind of beeps and squeaks stuff. Old Joe used to handle it but his replacement isn't here yet. Here's this message where the Guard wants to renew the contract and I guess we're involved. Please look into this".

Jim: "Yes sir!"

I called the Guard action officer and found out that the 'bug smashers' were Lear Jets!! And indeed the contract was coming up for renewal in about 18 months and we needed to start working on an RFP for it.

Of course since I clearly needed to get familiar with the program, and since FI's base was only a short drive away it was clear to me that the incumbent contractor needed my 'supervision', so I bagged a bunch of rides with them.

To keep this on topic at least a tad, this is where I encountered 'public use' aircraft.

About this time the Post Office published an RFP to lease B727s to carry the mail. It turned out their RFP was not well written and IIRC the award was canceled and the Post Office had redo the whole thing, after a bunch of lawsuits. We really wanted to learn from their mistakes.

It turned out that the government experts in public use airplanes are what is now called the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho. These guys were the most awesome civil servants I've ever met.
They were lean forward get the mission done guys, and were super generous with their time and expertise in helping us not screw up our RFP.

I got to visit several of the bidder sites, they were all capable companies, and I really admired the managers and founders that I met in the process. It takes a lot of guts and a certain amount of craziness to start an aviation company!

We did write an RFP after some delays and awarded the follow on contract to a company called "Phoenix Air" in Cartersville Georgia. The CEO was a very colorful character called Mark Thompson.

The jammer that we equipped these airplanes with used something called 'digital radio frequency memory (DRFM)'. At this time almost all jammers were analog, but we justified buying DRFM because, being digital, it could be programmed to replicate many different threat jammers. And since it was all digital it was kind of to jamming as MIDI is to music. You could program it to make almost any kind of 'music' you wanted, just with a scripting language.

One issue we'd had with the initial contract was that the contractor was allowed to use the Lears for charters when we were not using them. This created some awkward situations for a number of reasons.

Also, since we paid by the hour based on paper forms we kind of, sort of, wondered if there might occasionally be some 'P-51' time in the logs. Not that we could ever prove that, we just wondered.

And we had some complaints that some of the pilots (mostly retired fighter pilots) were doing a bit more low level flying than what was strictly necessary for the mission. Especially in Alaska!

So the new contract said that the planes had to be painted like military airplanes, and were not to be used for other purposes.

We also required that the planes have GPS units connected to an ACARS unit that would automatically report their location and also (via an oil pressure switch) the start and stop motor times. Mr Thompson thought that GPS was a kind of gimcrack and grumbled about installing it, this was well before there were IFR gps boxes. Still, we were glad we knew when and where our airplanes were flying.

We were really proud to brief the four button about the contract, especially about the jammers.

Of course we spent most of the briefing talking about the proposed paint jobs. Sigh.

In any case, I'm real proud of this program, AFAIK it's still in operation, bringing great training and testing to the USAF for a fraction of the cost of using military assets.
 
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