The classic urban legend that hung on forever was the parker-pen guy that showed up at a FSDO for a checkride with his logbooks, and was asked about a particular airplane in the log. The applicant insisted he'd flown the airplane, but was distressed to learn that the airplane he claimed to have logged time in belonged to the FAA inspector administering the practical test...and that inspector hadn't loaned his airplane to anyone. If one's going to falsify the time, one should at least take care to ensure the falsified time isn't in an airplane belonging to the inspector.

The story was cute, but suspect because a) everyone claimed to know of such a case; b) it persisted for decades and at every telling had "only just happened," and c) most inspectors couldn't afford an airplane. I did, however, know of one case in which it happened, though I don't know if the inspector actually owned the airplane, or just knew it well enough to know that the applicant didn't have time in that specific N-number.

I have seen an inspector measure routes in a logbook against a sectional chart to see if they met the cross country distance minimums, and dismiss an applicant because the inspector determined that the applicant lacked the necessary experience to apply, based on disqualifying the applicant's cross-country experience. That's a case of actual time logged, not being accepted which is similar to the concept of the original poster, as opposed to time that's completely falsified. I have also run into applicants (job-seekers) over the years who lacked qualification by logging incorrectly, or who had outright falsified their experience and were caught: claiming to have flown a particular job that they didn't fly, or aircraft, or background. I'm sure anyone who has done a sim pre-evaluation of screening has run into an applicant who claimed experience, but couldn't fly their way our of a wet paper bag, let alone the ubiquitous takeoff, hold, approach, missed scenario. I've seen it in live screening flights, too; enough to know it's not such an isolated thing as to be rare.

I knew the assistant chief pilot at a 135 operation years ago, who applied for work across town. I was at the location where a sim check was to be given him, and happened to see his picture on the wall of a flight school that ran the sim. Based on the date on his solo picture on the wall, all his stories and experience were false, and he flunked the sim check. I sat in on his interview, and his lack of experience showed up in the responses to questions. Likewise, I knew an applicant for a 121 position, who ultimately was fired, who claimed 1000 hours in a Hawker, when the applicant had worked as a receptionist for the firm with the Hawker...and didn't actually fly the airplane. The same applicant claimed helicopter time doing traffic watch, but couldn't talk on the radio, and while claiming 2,500 hours, turned out to have received the commercial certificate only two years prior. I'm sure anyone who has evaluated applicants has seen the same sort of thing.

I was present for the screening of an applicant in a tailwheel airplane many years ago, for a government operation, that required a unique combination of experience; utility tailwheel, low altitude, dispensing, and instrument work. Not a lot of applicants had that combination, and the flight screening was given in an armored S2R thrush airplane. This applicant struggled to taxi initially, and didn't know he had to put the stick forward to unlock the tailwheel: telling, given his claims of experience. Ultimately, he stacked the airplane up during the checkride, wrecking the only airplane available to do screening for applicants at the time; an expensive way to find out he lacked the experience to do the job. Not the first time I've seen that, and I'm sure, not the last.

So far as an applicant with UAS experience seeking a certificate, rating, or job, while the regulation seems clear on the matter, I think there's room for shades of grey in the experience; someone operating a more substantial reaper or global hawk isn't in the same experience category, practically speaking, as someone who's been flying their kid's quad-copter around the neighborhood. I don't know enough about the training and experience of a Global Hawk pilot to judge the applicability. I know RQ4 pilots at Beale were getting some aero club experience in a 172 to get a little exposure to actually flying, so not really a lot of practical experience even in the sophisticated unmanned equipment. I'm sure that as time goes on, the lines between unmanned and manned will begin to blur.