Originally Posted by
IrishFlyer757
Hello -
I am teaching a guy for his pvt at a small part 61 FBO. He is a 56 year old farmer that bought his own little Cherokee 180 before he even got his license. He is a bit wide-eyed and naiive but a good guy overall.
He asked me the other day - "What would ever keep me from just filling out all sorts of time in my logbook and reporting it to the insurance company so that my insurance premium would go down?"
I was a bit startled that he would even ask that - but knowing him he will not do that. It got me thinking though - what would stop him? How would the insurance company even know? He is the aircraft owner and once he has a private there is nobody there to police him or his log entries.
I explained to him besides the obvious insurance fraud (maybe?) and the fact that his log is considered a federal document and that falsifying it would be a bad bad idea - I didn't know what else to say.
Can anyone explain how I might better answer the question?
I would be VERY careful if I was you. First things first regarding him and the logbook. Yeah, he can do it and he’ll get caught when he goes for his ride and the Fed looks at the planes logs and sees that the numbers don’t match. And if he DOES cook the planes logbooks…they’ll catch that too.
Years ago as a fairly new CFI, I had an identical situation. Farmer, nice guy…I’d known him most of my life. Started lessons and decided he wanted to buy an airplane. I tried to discourage it until he had his license. He went ahead and bought a 150. I did a couple of lessons in it with him and would not sign him off for solo…the owner of the school did, against my objections. Like I said, a nice guy…but wanted to do things his way. The school and I parted ways when I got an offer from my alma mater that was much better.
About a month later, I got a call from the GADO office at home. The guy was dead. And my name was in the logbook, so they wanted to know what I had done with the guy. I told them, and explained I would not sign him off because I was not convinced he wouldn’t start going out and doing his own thing.
Which is what he did. He began keeping the plane on his farm and flying it up to the airport for his lessons and out to fool around…with 15 hours of total time. He decided to fly up to the airport one morning for a cup of coffee. Called the school owner, who said it was VFR (this guy would lie to his mother for a buck).
So off he went. Into a fog bank. They recovered the plane from the river the next day.
Bottom line…there is no statute of limitations on FAA enforcement and they can and will make your life uncomfortable if they think you might have not done an adequate job of instructing.
I’d have a serious come to Jesus with the guy if I were you. And if you have ANY hint of shenanigans, drop him like a hot potato. Document it in your records and file a NASA report to cover your six.
The licenses in your back pocket are yours. No one has the right to threaten them.
Oh yeah...it IS considered falsifying a document and if he reports any of that time on his application for flight test? I do believe it becomes a felony. And he can kiss it goodbye.