What are the considerations to make when altering logbook entries?

Question

As I move through my flying experience, the possibilities for logging time change.

• Before I was rated, my time with an instructor is logged as dual only. Most of these entries were made by various CFI's.
• After being rated, FBO checkouts and flight reviews were logged as PIC and dual. These entries were often made by myself and signed by the CFI.
• When receiving instruction for endorsements (tailwheel, high performance, complex), entries were usually made by the CFI. It appears that most of the time, the instructors making the entries favored the idea that until I had the endorsements, they would leave the PIC column blank and log only dual received.

The answers to This Question lead me to believe that I could indeed have logged this as both dual and PIC, since I was rated for the category and class for which I was flying.

Here is the question: What consideration should be given before I go back and add PIC to the flights which were filled in by someone else? Should I leave it alone or claim the time as PIC since I was both "sole manipulator" and rated in that category and class.

Answer 1

I couldn't find any specific regulations, but correcting errors or omissions in the time logged is fine. You should never change an actual endorsement, though.

To take a simple example, if your CFI wrote in 1.1 hours instead of 2.1 hours then I assume you wouldn't hesitate to correct it later because it's an obvious error of fact. In the same way, if your CFI didn't write in PIC time when he should have then there's no problem if you add it yourself. Provided of course that you're sure that you were indeed allowed to log PIC time for that particular flight.

If you want, you could add a comment or keep a record of changes on a separate sheet in case someone ever questions it. But for what it's worth, I have a number of corrections in my logbook and no one has ever asked about them. There's a high degree of trust involved in logging time because it's so difficult to verify the information independently.

But you shouldn't touch an endorsement. Only an instructor can make an endorsement and even if there's some mistake then you should ask the instructor to enter a new one rather than change it yourself. Endorsements get much more attention that time logged, and I think it would be tough to explain why you changed one yourself.

Finally, you mentioned your instructors' "thinking" or "ideas" about logging PIC time. I don't want to make assumptions about their intentions (and I'm not a CFI), but logging PIC time is defined by regulation, not by what individual instructors think. If you're still in contact with those CFIs, it would be a great topic to discuss with them. Perhaps they didn't deliberately omit the PIC time, they just forgot or overlooked it. Or maybe they did have a reason, but in that case they should at least be able to explain it to you with reference to the regulations.