How do you interpret AMC FCL.050? Is an all electronic logbook compliant to FCL.050? There is a rumor of a german NfL to be released soon where the BMVI wants to demand a bound book for flightlogs. Don’t know if this could have any regulating power though.
The obvious point is that a signature is trivial to forge, in Jason’s example. Easy to make it look exactly right, too.
LeSving wrote:
AFAIK the log book is a legal paper. Without signing it’s “worth” nothing.
Is it? I am now halfway through logbook number 7 right now. Neither this one nor logbooks number one to six contain a single signature of anyone. I have flown under national regulations, JAA and now EASA, for a decade I also had an FAA validation for my license. I have been ramp inspected numerous times in various countries which in many cases included the inspector to have a look at my logbook (mostly to verify that I fulfill the 90-day-requirement I guess). Never was I told by anyone that my signatureless logbooks are worth nothing. And even if, I could not care less!
Also I do not sign my student’s logbooks as I already wrote. So far, they were all issued their licenses. What we have to do is fill out a “Mission Report” for each training flight. Each of those gets signed by instructor and student and the collected mission reports are part of the student’s file at the flying school. Occasionally (evey five years or so) the authority makes random inspections of the FTOs and will pull out a student’s file to see if it is complete. There they may see my signatures, but nowhere else…
What happens with 2 yearly class rating flights, or FAA BFRs?
EASA class rating revalidation takes place in the license, not the logbook. The only case where one would want to have the instructor sign in the logbook is where the instructor that did the one-hour flight with you will not – for whatever reason – do the revalidation exercise in the license (but somebody else).
Who doesn’t have an FAA license obviously doesn’t need a flight review (no longer called BFR).
What an EASA pilot needs signatures for in the logbook is differences trainings. There are no grandfathering rights for pilots having flown aircraft with say VP, RU, etc. before these rules came into place (JAR-FCL).
What also needs to signed by the instructor are PICUS and SPIC hours ( http://www.lbv.brandenburg.de/dateien/luftfahrt/faq_AMC_1_FCL.050.pdf ). But these are very rare and few students know or care about their existence. I never got asked to sign for that.
I think the last signature I have in my logbook was for my CPL LST. I never carry my log book anywhere and only keep a paper one as a backup to my electronic one and in case of strange circumstances (I have encountered one NAA so far which refuses to accept electronic logbooks for some things). I wasn’t aware that there was any requirement for the 2 yearly class rating instructor flight to be signed, as it isn’t a check in any way. I don’t have any of my LPC’s signed in my logbook, the examiner signature on the ratings page on my licence will do for that. I didn’t have any of my PICUS hours signed for ATPL issue, the IAA (Ireland) wanted a company signed letter to confirm them and the CAA (UK) never questioned them. I also don’t have any of my differences training signed off but that’s because all mine via a rating of some sort ie. I did a lot of my PPL training on G1000 equipped airplanes so that covered the EFIS stuff, VP and retractable came via the CPL and I did turbocharged stuff when I was issued with a non standard MPA/MEP/IR rating. I still never found out whether having flown hundreds of hours behind 2 turbocharged engines whether that inherently allows me to fly behind a turbo SEP – the CAA say ask EASA and I have been waiting 4 years for a response from an EASA technical advisor on it.
Where does it say that differences training has to be recorded in the logbook and/or signed?
The phrase “The differences training shall be entered in the pilot’s logbook or equivalent record and signed by the instructor as appropriate.” occurs many times in CAP804 with regards to various types of differences tranining associated with FCL.710, however looking at Part-FCL itself I don’t see it – so perhaps a UK thing.
what_next wrote:
Is it?
AFAIK. I have to sign myself, each flight, or somebody else sign if there is some training etc involved. But, the reference is to old national regulations. With EASA, I don’t know. I didn’t get my EASA FCL until less than a year ago.
