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Originally Posted by hdus001 I've heard from an instructor-friend how he once caught a student cheating - the student was meant to do a cross-country solo flight, which involves planning and navigating using paper charts to a remote airfield, but the student instead flew out to the training area and just flew around in that area for a whole hour (obviously wasn't confident enough to plan/navigate a cross country flight by themselves). Got caught out when the instructor also happened to go to the training area in another plane with a different student and saw this familiar looking aircraft Apparently several of the overseas students did that regularly! |
yes, it happens. Actually, your CFI is supposed to check your flight planning and preparations before you set of as a student pilot on your cross country solo flight. As long as you are still a student pilot, he is responsible. (At least under FAA rules).
My CFI always insisted on students making a full stop at the destination airport, park the plane on the ramp, get out, get coffee, call him on mobile phone, talk through how it went and review the return flight. Unless he saw clear evidence that you could do these cross country flights with reasonable confidence, he would never let you go just like that.
What just baffles me, is that people are cheating with this sort of stuff. It really shows you have the wrong mentality and the wrong attitude to flying.
Its very easy to cheat when working on your IFR certification, especially, as many people do, you train with a buddy. Before you can take your IFR check ride you need to have flown a considerable numbers “under the hood” as they say. So purely on instruments. In practice this means you will put on some special googles that restrict your outside vision. You will need to have a safety pilot next to you. Technically, the safety pilot is the pilot in command. Under FAA rules both pilots can actually log the hours in your log book.
I build my IFR hours like this with a buddy of mine, who was also building IFR hours. It is a very effective way of doing so. You share the rental cost of the plane and help each other out as safety pilot.
But nobody other than yourself and your buddy have a clue as to what happens in the cockpit. Do you keep the goggles on, what actions does the safety pilot perform etc.
My CFI hooked as up, telling us, you guys need to fly together You have the same attitude, some experience, neither of you will do anything stupid, you will make a great pair helping each other through IFR training. Worked out really well for both of us!.
We enjoyed it and we flew well over the minimum required hours for the check ride. Just to build experience and confidence. It is just beyond me, why people think they can cheat on this sort of stuff. It is literally "life and death”. Sounds dramatic, but it really is.
Jeroen