"Gary Drescher" wrote in message
...
"Crash Lander" wrote in message
...
When pilots quote how many hours they have logged, is this a personal log
that is kept, or is every hour you fly entered into a national registry
and formally kept?

It's a personal log. But if the FAA has reason to be suspicious, they may
often be able to cross-check. Almost everyone does their primary training
in either rented or military planes; in either case, there's an
independent record of the planes' usage. At more advanced levels, pilots
who fly for airliners or some other commerical operators will likewise
generate an independent record of their flight hours. In between, though,
there are pilots who use their own planes for personal flying; those
flight hours would be harder to verify.

--Gary


I once spoke to an owner who said that his way of controlling maintenance
costs was, "If he didn't log the flight, then the aircraft didn't either."