Long range signoff...
 

I have a student that needs a sign-off to take his checkride, I am away at school and only working on the weekends and will not be around to sign the guy off.

Can I sign an endorsement and fax a copy of it to him for the checkride?

I wouldn't think that a fax would cut it. However you could endorse a sticker with the required items and overnight it to him. You'd need to sign the 8710 anyway before the checkride, right?

Well I may have to go with the mail route, now you sign the 8710s electronically with IACRA.

At our school we authorize flight instructors to endorse a students flight plan via fax. However, the only time I am aware of us being allowed to do this is when a student gets stuck at an airport on a solo cross country for an unforeseen reason such as weather.

I did my Flight Instructor training in one state and ended up taking the checkride in another. My instructor signed the 8710, but we forgot the signoff to actually take the checkride. Three years after my checkride, I haven't had anybody give me problems for having a faxed endorsement on a sticker in my logbook.

I haven't heard of an FAA legal opinion on this, so I'm just guessing here...

I don't think there is a legal requirement for an instructor to personally make a pen-and-ink endorsement in your logbook. Since "logbook" is not legally defined in the FAR's, your logbook could be anything you want it to be...a collection of loose papers, a three-ring binder, a paper towel, whatever. A fax endorsement SHOULD work fine, but I would probably replace it with the signed original asap...future employers tend to prefer unambigious records.

However...I would think that a required endorsement on a student pilot certificate might be a different story. The student certificate IS clearly defined in the FAR's, and if the FAR's say you need to endorse it, a fax might not be sufficient in the eyes of some Feds. Or if you do the fax, follow up with a pen-and-ink immediately upon returning.