QUESTION: A person is receiving training for a U.S. Commercial Pilot and Instrument Rating. The person holds a Canadian Commercial Pilot Certificate – ASEL and AMEL, and Instrument-Airplane Rating. The person has received a Restricted U.S. private pilot certificate, ASEL and AMEL, Instrument Airplane (passed the instrument foreign knowledge test) that was issued in accordance with § 61.75 (based on her Canadian pilot certificate). The person stated that the examiner is denying her to take the practical tests because he said he cannot count her previous flight training received in Canada from a Canadian flight instructor [§ 61.41(a)(2)] because the individual training sessions were not signed off individually by the instructor. She stated her logbook and the way they do it in Canada at the school she attended to earn her Canadian Commercial Pilot Certificate and Instrument Rating was that she would fill in the contents and times of each training session, and then the school's chief instructor would make one single signature endorsement on each page of her logbook that essentially states that he the chief instructor is certifying the times and contents of the training are correct.
The person stated the examiner who is denying her to take the practical tests told her each entry must be signed by the flight instructor. I assume this examiner is reading § 61.51(h)(2) and understanding that to specifically state that the training must be individually signed off for each lesson.
Does each individual flight training session have to be signed off individually by the instructor or can one signature from the instructor serve as a “blanket” signature for all the flight training sessions?
ANSWER: Ref. § 61.51(b) nor (h)(2); Neither § 61.51(b) nor (h)(2) require that each training session be signed off individually by the instructor. I agree that may be the normal and probably preferred method, but it is not the only method for “. . . Be endorsed in a legible manner by the authorized instructor . . .” [i.e., § 61.51(h)(2)]. It is possible and I've seen it both ways, that the instructor just makes one blanket signature for the entire page or the instructor can make individual signatures to log the flight training given. And I've seen it where the instructor makes one blanket signature on the last page of the student's training jacket that certifies the flight training given. Either way, the rules are not specific on addressing this issue. Unless there is something more that I'm not being told in the question to suspect the flight training time may not be legitimate, I would not prevent the person from qualifying for the practical test merely because each flight training session was not individually signed off by the instructor. As I previously stated, neither § 61.51(b) nor (h)(2) require the training sessions to be individually signed off by the instructor.