Didn't log flights at my major, now what?
 

Hi guys, I am currently a CA at a major. I am looking to leave for a large major. I never thought I'd leave 8 years ago and stopped logging my flights. I asked our records dept if I could get a copy of my flight records and they are telling me they don't have any for flights, only training events. I have picture-perfect logbooks for 5,500 hours of flying. Just not the last 8 years.

Any advice would be appreciated! Should I recreate it to the best of my abilities and be ready to explain my lapse of judgment? Create an estimated total?

Thanks so much.

Is it possible to construct a somewhat good guestimate of you flying hours based on your pay?

I would take your annual pay, extrapolate that to a conservative estimate of hours flown, and make one entry per year. Your training reocrds will show when you changed seats/equipment making it possible to split mid-year if needed.

The fact that you already work at a major means you are more than qualified, you just have to be ready for the inevitable interview question about your logbook which can be spun as positive. Loyalty - "I never planned to leave..."

Yes, make an estimated number based on pay (better yet if you can get all pay records). Probably good enough for an interview in this climate.

But I wouldn't actually don't log that in your book, keep that as the official record that it's supposed to be... I don't think there's an FAA allowance for estimated flight time of that scale.

Use Flica? they keep records for a decade or so

Don’t all have to keep currency records?
 

Don’t all Flight Departments have to keep your records for currency, night landings, etc? Every company that I have flown for has kept those records in some departments. That’s a great idea about estimating via pay. Good luck..

They need to keep them for the relevant time period, which might be one year. They may (probably) have them archived after that. I'm sure if the FAA wanted it, they could pull the archives.

They might not bother to do that for a line pilot though. Probably not required to. Don't want to be inundated with constant requests from pilots who didn't keep their logs. Especially since they'd probably rather you not get a new job right now.

I've been doing this for about a quarter of a century and flown with many pilots who quit logging flight time, quit renewing their CFI, etc. Let this be a cautionary tail. Quit logging flight time after you turn 65, 67, 82 or whatever the retirement age ends up being. You never know what's going to happen in the future.

How can they not have you records?
They need to keep track of your currencies and your max allowable 30/60/90/365 days.
Anyway, pay records should have number of hours.
Unless they don’t have pay records either *slow eye-roll*

Logging is required even in 121 world.