Not to mention, by keeping my own logbook, I have found at least 20-30 flights missing from my records...from less than 3 years of flying!

 

Don't make sweeping statements like "period". For a fighter guy they do.

 

Precisely why my logbooks (and other vital documents--passports, birth certificates, etc) live in a water-resistant fireproof lockbox:

 

My apologies to the A-10 pilots that don't claim time in any multi-seat aircraft, ever.

 

How does ARMS track this for you? I wish there were a PIC or A-code total for multi-seat airplanes. I keep track on my own in my spreadsheet.

 

After I started my second tour on the KC-10, I kept a meticulous log book. I was appalled at how bad our HARMs office was. Literally, every other flight had errors. It was so bad, that the people working in the office got very short with me. But it wasn't my problem, it was their crappy work. Part of the problem is the system which they have to work with. Also, I've found some potentially embarrassing things such as double logged missions (try to explain that in an interview) and entire missions that didn't have any night or instrument time logged.

This has been a big beef of mine ever since AMC and ACC AOS went to their new and improved ORM worksheets ... you know the ones with a bazillion questions that do little to keep you safe because they're going to get waived anyways.

On the worksheets they ask how many pilot in command hours does the aircraft commander have. Well how in the hell do you expect me to answer that since the USAF doesn't track PIC/SIC time?

When we had our SAV from AMC Stan/Eval, I made sure to voice my opinion about their ORM worksheets and the references to PIC time. Unfortunately, they didn't have a good answer but said they stood behind the ORM program and felt it was working.

 

The PIC question comes up constantly in the KC-135 community because of the hours requirements as aircraft commander before touch and go certification and instructor school. We pretty much just applied the rule of thumb of: 1 AC deployment = definitely has the hours for touch and go; 2 AC deployments = definitely has the hours for instructor upgrade. I'm generally the only pilot in my squadron who knows how many sorties/hours he has as the A-coded guy. I guess to get actual PIC time I could filter for A-code sorties then look at PRI time. Of course, I've also applied the standard of splitting PRI and SEC evenly with the other guy. So I guess there's no real way to know exactly how much I've been at the controls of a jet I've signed for.

 

That's a good point. I never really thought of it in terms of the ORM sheet.

 

The Air Force needs to calculate PIC and SIC. Nobody outside of the chair force wants to know how much time you've had in the seat. They want to know how many flights/hours you were PIC, the challenges and experiences you've had. And now it appears so does the Air Force.

 

In a single-pilot aircraft, how can it be anything other than PIC time?