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4 Answers

Instructor Didn’t Sign Log Book

Asked by: 9271 views FAA Regulations, Flight Instructor, General Aviation, Student Pilot

 

To make a long story short, my currency/biannual and medical are all way past due, but decided to go for an hour long discovery flight while I was visiting someone out of town. Everything went great and I freshened up on a lot of my skills. I gave the instructor my log book to fill out after the flight, trusting that everything would be filled out correct. When I reviewed it upon getting back home, I realized he didn't put any information about his instructor certificate/signature/etc. I'm curious to see if this fight "counts" or if I need to figure out a way to get back to him somehow?

By "counts" I mean, if it counts toward total time for future ratings (i.e. commercial). The entry was made as 1 hour dual received. I just want to make sure it's not invalid for any reason without a particular instructor signature and credentials.

Thanks

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4 Answers



  1. Sam Dawson on Nov 01, 2012

    The instructor is required to sign your logbook and can get into trouble for not doing so.

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  2. Wes Beard on Nov 02, 2012

    If the instructor wasn’t teaching… there is no need to have him sign the logbook. It sounds like you were the one flying and he was giving dual instruction which requires him yo sign the logbook. If you are the manipulator of controls fill out the entry and you can use that time for future certificates and ratings. I think it is poor of the instructor to not sign the book though

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  3. JERRY EICHELBERGER on Nov 02, 2012

    Without a medical, the CFI was PIC and you would have been receiving instruction. He is required to legally sign your log book. Call him and have him send you a sticker with his information that you can put in logbook.

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  4. Matthew Waugh on Nov 02, 2012

    So right now you can log the time as PIC (sole manipulator clause).

    Most logbooks have a column headed “dual” – and we generally mean that to be “training time” which is the phrase used the regs. You cannot log training time for the flight because the entry does not meet the requirements of 61.51.(f). So the entry is incorrect as it stands, and you could cross-out the entry in the dual column and remove it from your total dual.

    It is perfectly possible that the instructor was acting as PIC but not giving instruction (but then they would have been unable to LOG it as PIC). However – it’s doubtful that’s what was happening, and almost certain the instructor has it logged as dual given, PIC (but maybe not). At this point however, without seeing the instructors logbook we don’t know if they have done anything wrong.

    So if you remove the dual entry – your logbook is perfectly legal and correct as it stands. The flight instructor is not responsible for your logbook – they should be responsible for adding the information they should add to comply with 61.51(f) – but if you have dual time logged that does not meet the requirements of 61.51(f) and you use it as training time, it’ll be you getting the grilling, not the instructor (although for grins and giggles the FAA inspector may want to track the instructor down and see if they have an inconsistent logbook entry and nail them as well).

    There’s no real requirement that you log WHO was PIC on the flight, but you might want to make a note in case it ever comes up.

    You can recover the dual time by, as others have suggested, contacting the CFI and asking them for some kind of written acknowledgement of the flight that meets 61.51(f) and you can stick that in your logbook.

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