Flying Without a Valid License

[vanNostrum]

    [font=verdana][url=http://www.ocregister.com/common/archives/?catID=18800]News[/url] [/font][font=verdana]Irvine man indicted for flying jets without pilot's license[/font] [font=verdana]May 19, 2016 [/font]
[font=verdana]Updated  8:23 p.m.[/font]
  [font=verdana] By LOUIS CASIANO Jr.  / STAFF WRITER [/font]  [list]
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[/list]    [font=verdana]An Irvine man was indicted Thursday for flying private jets without being certified to do so. [/font][font=verdana]Arnold Gerald Leto III, 36, was indicted by a federal grand jury on two counts of piloting a plane without a license, according to court documents. [/font][font=verdana]Leto [url=http://www.ocregister.com/articles/lice ... pilot.html]piloted a twin engine Falcon 10 turbojet[/url] from Van Nuys Airport to Las Vegas on April 8 and a Cessna Citation turbojet on Jan. 30, 2015 from Santa Monica to Phoenix, the indictment said. [/font][font=verdana]Prosecutors believe Leto piloted the Falcon 10 aircraft with about 8 people on board without the required co-pilot and had not been certified to operate the plane.[/font][font=verdana]Leto, president of Irvine-based Aviation Financial Services Inc., had his pilot’s license revoked in January. It was unclear why. [/font][font=verdana]Furthermore, he did not have a turbo-jet rating required to fly the planes.[/font][font=verdana]“The FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) requires pilots to be rated and trained for that plane (Falcon 10),” Federal prosecutor Mark Williams said when Leto was charged in April. “He was taking a large amount of passengers and charging significant amounts of money to do so.”[/font][font=verdana]Calls and email to Leto’s attorney were not immediately returned. [/font][font=courier][size=2][font=verdana]He faces up to six years in federal prison.[/font][/size][/font]
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[font=arial black][size=3]Probably happens more often than we think. This one got caught
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[font=verdana][size=3][font=courier][font=arial black]I once sat at GS with someone that for many years had been flying his airplane for business  all over Quebec and Ontario  with only a Student Pilot Permit.[/font][/font][/size][/font]
[font=verdana][size=3][font=courier][font=arial black]Eventually he was convinced to get a license .[/font][/font][/size][/font]
[font=verdana][size=3][font=courier][font=arial black]Ironically he died shortly after getting his license  when his airplane stall on departure out of a private strip [/font][/font][/size]
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[Colonel]

In Canada, you don't need a pilot licence to fly
any airplane - as long as you don't carry passengers.

I have had many student pilots with thousands
of hours of flight time and decades of experience,
flying everything from nosewheel single engine
land to tailwheel single and multi engine land to
single engine float plane to jet.  All legal.

Great hands on those guys, but little interest in
TC written tests.  With those guys, it's best to
sent them to the USA and have them get a stand
alone FAA pilot certificate. 

The FAA written tests are far more sensible than
the insane TC written tests, which everyone knows
are more of a measure of your language skills than
your aviation knowledge.

The funny thing is that people who's mother (and
only) tongue is English, struggle with the TC written
tests, they are written that poorly.

What is not so funny is that foreign students who
can barely understand a word of English, effortlessly
pass the written tests, and everyone knows they
are cheating.  I am not making this up.  Think
about it for a while, and you will realize that these
FTU's are completely fraudulent.

TC is cool with the foreign student puppy mills
cheating on the written tests they administer. 
Don't really understand why, but the bureaucratic
mind is a twisted and incomprehensible thing.

[David MacRay]

How are they cheating?

Don't read any extra stuff into that. I am not challenging the idea. I legitimately am curious about the mechanics of it.

[Colonel]

[quote]Some schools aren't "cheating" per se[/quote]

Remember Maylan, in Ontario?  They passed out USB
sticks with the tests on them.  I saw one. 


[quote]I'm also not so sure TC is "cool" with it[/quote]

However one wants to phrase it, TC knew about it,
and refrained from taking any action.


[quote]Canada be a "friendly" place for foreign students[/quote]

I don't doubt that there are preferential rules
for the politically correct.

[David MacRay]

I was wrong. I did not want to know. That's probably going to be something I will never forget too.

[David MacRay]

I'll return to drinking if need be, in order to erase my brain.