Fudging the logbook

Spike · September 7, 2012

Getting a job in this business is simple. Really simple. If you have a hard time just figuring out this thread, then maybe you shouldn’t be in this business.

This thread has gone to 12 pages and 226 replies. The same basic reply spun a thousand ways. Page 1 reads like page 5 which reads like page 12. The answer remains the same and if you don’t get it, you never will.

SBuzzkill · September 7, 2012

So you're telling me there's a chance. YES!

aeroscout · September 7, 2012

Getting a job in this business is simple. Really simple. If you have a hard time just figuring out this thread, then maybe you shouldn't be in this business.

This thread has gone to 12 pages and 226 replies. The same basic reply spun a thousand ways. Page 1 reads like page 5 which reads like page 12. The answer remains the same and if you don't get it, you never will.

You're missing or glossing over all the really good posts, that are not at all like you describe, reply number 200 for instance.

LSH · September 10, 2012

I listened to a story of a guy who fudged his log book. Said he has 3x more hours than he did. He ended up killing 4 people including himself on a fire contract...that was when they decided to check into his "hours" he said he had...they could only prove about 600 and he was on a forest service contract. The owner of the company told me the following: "I went against my gut feeling on the guy. He could fly fine but something did feel right when i checked him out....trust your gut when you are checking somebody out...not their log book...and don't feel shy to turn somebody away because of a feeling."

You can't prove experience so much in a couple of flights...but experience is what will so often be the only thing that saves you. That is something too many pilots seem not to understand and since it is not understood some of the lower time pilots feel they can do just as good of a job as a person who has more hours. These guys who feel that may decide to make their log book "reflect" how good they think they are. These are also the ones who will kill people.

Let me also say in some cases a 500 hour guy may be a better pilot than a 2000 hour guy. BUT what i consider a "Good pilot" is not necessarily who is better at the stick, but the person who can make the proper decisions to keep him/herself within their own limitations.

aeroscout · September 10, 2012

Dear LSH, I wouldn't call that fudging. I would call that outright fraud. Reckless and irresponsible fraud that inexorably led to those deaths you mention, God rest their souls. As for fudging, you can't get anyone to agree on what is or isn't "fudging". If you don't believe me, go back and re read all 200+ replies.

Mikemv · September 10, 2012

LSH, did you mean to quote that as "I went against my gut feeling on the guy. He could fly fine but something did NOT feel right when I checked him out....trust your gut when you are checking somebody out...not their log book...and don't feel shy to turn somebody away because of a feeling."?

We have all heard the saying "He/she is a good stick" but how many of us are talked about for having "great head working skills"?

Mike

Edited September 10, 2012 by Mikemv

eagle5 · September 10, 2012

You can't prove experience so much in a couple of flights...but experience is what will so often be the only thing that saves you. That is something too many pilots seem not to understand and since it is not understood some of the lower time pilots feel they can do just as good of a job as a person who has more hours. These guys who feel that may decide to make their log book "reflect" how good they think they are. These are also the ones who will kill people.

I've always figured that most of the fudging was low time guys fudging a couple hundred hours so they can get out of teaching and start flying tours (or some other basic entry-level type gig) and therefore not really trying to jump up too far on the experience level?

A 600hr guy fudging his way into firefighting is just insane! Its like going from stealing 200 bucks from the til at the kwiki mart, to robbing a bank vault of 20 million!

Hotdogs · September 11, 2012

There's a job ad with a minimum of 1000hrs to fly tours in an R44. One pilot has only 500hrs, but has been flying tours in an R44 2-3hrs/day, 5 days a week, for that last 200hrs. Another pilot has 5000hrs, but has never flown tours, has no R44 time, and only flies 1-3hrs a month.

FWIW...

There is a HUGE difference between a 500 hour guy and a 5000 hour guy. That 5000 hour pilot probably doesn't take that many hours to become proficient again and therefore may not need to fly as many hours. (I.e. less money) I'm speaking out on a limb here but tour flying can not be that challenging of a environment to work ...and it's an R44 not an S-92....Let's be real.

...and why would a 5000 hour pilot be looking for a 1000 hour job?

eagle5 · September 11, 2012

FWIW...

There is a HUGE difference between a 500 hour guy and a 5000 hour guy. That 5000 hour pilot probably doesn't take that many hours to become proficient again and therefore may not need to fly as many hours. (I.e. less money) I'm speaking out on a limb here but tour flying can not be that challenging of a environment to work ...and it's an R44 not an S-92....Let's be real.

...and why would a 5000 hour pilot be looking for a 1000 hour job?

So you believe they would pick the guy with the fat logbook over the one who has specific job and type experience! I hope you're not the only one who feels this way!

Remember, that 500hr pilot doesn't require any additional training, at NO additional cost, because he's been flying tours in an R44!

I can do your job better than you, even though I've never done it before, or even flown that aircraft before, just because I have a fatter logbook,...that's bullshit!

Edited September 11, 2012 by eagle5

eagle5 · September 11, 2012

...and why would a 5000 hour pilot be looking for a 1000 hour job?

1. His company is downsizing, he's the low man on the totem poll and thus loses his job. His wife just had a kid so he wants to stay local, and the R44 tour gig is the only one out there right now.

2. His wife just got transfered and they're moving to another state. The only local job right now is an R44 tour gig.

3. He lost his job per #1, but doesn't have the night hours to get any of the high-time openings he sees. He figures flying tours could get him the night hours he needs, and the R44 gig is the only one around.

4. I knew a 4000hr pilot who couldn't keep a turbine gig because he had a drinking problem, and so he was stuck teaching in a 300.

The game of life has many variables!

Flying Pig · September 11, 2012

FWIW...

There is a HUGE difference between a 500 hour guy and a 5000 hour guy. That 5000 hour pilot probably doesn't take that many hours to become proficient again and therefore may not need to fly as many hours. (I.e. less money) I'm speaking out on a limb here but tour flying can not be that challenging of a environment to work ...and it's an R44 not an S-92....Let's be real.

...and why would a 5000 hour pilot be looking for a 1000 hour job?

Depends on what that 1000hr job is. One of my former unit members retired as a 25,000 hr MD500 pilot and went to a civilian job that only "required" 1000hrs to apply. He got that job making $100K+ a year.

Depending on the skill set required, would I take a 500hr pilot over a 5000hr pilot? Depends. Flying tours? Yeah, Id have to say I would take the 5000hr guy. Because he probably has a lot of skills that the 500hr pilot just doesnt have yet based on exposure. Now, take a 5000hr career tour pilot who flies AStars straight and level and has never done anything else, and I need you to fly a 500 for a long line job? I know pilots with well under 1000hrs who can long line like its nobodies business because thats literally what they started doing the day after they got their commercial ticket. If hours are equal, why not take the high time guy. If its the specific skill set you need, then a fat log book may not even be relevant. I think thats one of the issues with the industry. You have hundreds (if not more) 1000hr R22 pilots all standing in line trying to convince people to hire them. The industry is saturated with a ton of pilots who all have the same qual's and most really dont have any skills beyond what I could do with a Cessna 172.

avbug · September 11, 2012

I can do your job better than you, even though I've never done it before, or even flown that aircraft before, just because I have a fatter logbook,...that's bullshit!

The logbook is irrelevant. The experience is everything.

We don't pay pilots for their logbooks. We pay them for judgment. Judgement comes from experience.

You're not paid for monkey pilot skills. You're paid for judgement. Repeat that to yourself until you understand it.

Whether one has a little time in type or not isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. I can teach a student pilot to fly a 747. Time in type is useful, but a lot of employers hire people into aircraft they've never flown. A whole training industry exists just to accommodate that.

The employer isn't interested only in one's limited experience in that specific aircraft. A pilot with a broad background and experience in multiple types brings a lot to the table that the 500 hour pilot with 500 hours in one type of aircraft cannot.

I have a little flight time. How much is irrelevant. I've got it in over eighty different types of aircraft, however, and that does count for something. It doesn't mean that I'm an expert at any one of them. Far from it. However, having worked in many of them, some for extended times, some for shorter times, I have something to draw from. I have experience in weather, at night, cross country, at low altitudes, in foreign countries, over power lines, alongside powerlines, beneath powerlines, spraying, carrying passengers, hauling, lifting, flying light, multi, single, heavy, yada, yada, yada. It may well be that much of that experience isn't applicable to the job in consideration, and often it isn't. What is applicable is whatever I've been able to draw from that experience. Perhaps it's the judgement to say no, or sometimes the judgement to say yes. It's the experience that counts, and that can't be quantified. We can make a rough approximation from a resume, from a logbook, and roughly infer that the pilot with ten times the hours may have a little more experience from which to draw when it comes to judgement time...and many employers do just that.

However, if you think that 500 hours of time in a piston helicopter mean you're far, far more qualified that a much more experienced pilot with more years on the job, see how far that gets you. Let us all know how it goes.

I hope you're not the only one who feels this way!

Perhaps you meant that you hope he's the only one that feels that way, because you're quite passionate about disagreeing. If you hope he's not the only one that feels that way, you indicate that you hope others agree with him. Is that really what you meant to say?

If hours are equal, why not take the high time guy. If its the specific skill set you need, then a fat log book may not even be relevant. I think thats one of the issues with the industry. ... The industry is saturated with a ton of pilots who all have the same qual's and most really dont have any skills beyond what I could do with a Cessna 172.

Absolutely correct.

Edited September 11, 2012 by avbug

LSH · September 11, 2012

You're not paid for monkey pilot skills. You're paid for judgement. Repeat that to yourself until you understand it.

My paragraph simplified into 4 words.

I pre apologize for any typ-o's. I'm not a typist or blogger by trade and I have a lot of study to do in sentence structure.

Another thing i have noticed, and am curious if anyone else has, is that a person who has gotten their time quickly (say 1000 hours in a little over a year) versus a person who has gotten their time over a longer period (say 1000 hours in three years) seems to have worse judgment and ADM skills.

Please understand i am generalizing my statements. This is not always the case and you will find many exceptions to the generalization.

avbug · September 11, 2012

Another thing i have noticed, and am curious if anyone else has, is that a person who has gotten their time quickly (say 1000 hours in a little over a year) versus a person who has gotten their time over a longer period (say 1000 hours in three years) seems to have worse judgment and ADM skills.

Absolutely.

Time in the business isn't just measured in flight hours. It takes more than an hour in the aircraft to internalize that hour. To gain from judgement, building hours and writing time in the logbook will never take the place of having been there and done that, and the longer one does it, the longer one has to develop insights, reflect, and form judgement. It's not an overnight process.

Too often hours are seen as the defining criteria in establishing a pilot's experience, and they're not. The nature of the hours flow, the duration over which they're flown, the types of aircraft an operations flown, the number of seasons or years flown, the variety and scope of employment (both in terms of variety of employers and variety of types of jobs), and most importantly of all, the pilot's effort to learn and grow with each new experience, determine what that pilot is, how he or she acts, and what he or she is really worth.

Judging a pilot by the number of hours he's flown is somewhat akin to judging the mechanical condition of a car by the color of it's paint.

LSH · September 11, 2012

Dear LSH, I wouldn't call that fudging. I would call that outright fraud. Reckless and irresponsible fraud that inexorably led to those deaths you mention, God rest their souls. As for fudging, you can't get anyone to agree on what is or isn't "fudging". If you don't believe me, go back and re read all 200+ replies.

I used the term fudging simply due to this particular string being called "Fudging the Log Book". I was keeping true to form as not to confuse anyone. I agree with what you say...but referencing back to eagle5's statement:

A 600hr guy fudging his way into firefighting is just insane! Its like going from stealing 200 bucks from the til at the kwiki mart, to robbing a bank vault of 20 million!

...no matter what the amount stealing is still stealing..kind of black and white on that.

Spike · September 11, 2012

1001, 1002, 1003, 1004……………

eagle5 · September 11, 2012

However, if you think that 500 hours of time in a piston helicopter mean you're far, far more qualified that a much more experienced pilot with more years on the job, see how far that gets you. Let us all know how it goes.

Its not just the time in type, its also the relevant job experience! I would think that a guy who's been flying tours for the last 200hrs would have the skills/mindset that an employer would deem valuable? Just because a guy has a fatter logbook doesn't mean he's done anything that would make him better prepared to handle tourists than someone who already is!

My argument is not a blanket comparason of a 500hr pilot to a 5000hr pilot, but an argument over relevant experience over a number!

Hotdogs · September 11, 2012

My argument is not a blanket comparason of a 500hr pilot to a 5000hr pilot, but an argument over relevant experience over a number!

I would trust the 5000 hour pilot more with everything in that helicopter.

Tour flying is not hard so quit building it up to be something difficult.

You also sound like a whiner. I don't like whiners.

Pohi · September 11, 2012

Duplicate post