Hmmm, seems a little bit like 'padding' ones logbook to me!
Happens all the time in the civilian flying world. One reason is that once a pilot has passed his flying school private or commercial pilot's licence where strict records are kept of his flying hours during training and which may be audited by visiting CAA auditors, then very rarely is his log book audited again. It is the same with logging of instrument flight time.
During an initial instrument rating course at a flying school, there are specific minimum instrument hours required. At the completion of the course the CFI or equivalent stamps and certifies the log book of the candidate. Part of that certification includes cross referencing the hours logged by the pilot as against flying school records of his training. Once that pilot has left the training world into the real world of commercial flying, he can log what he likes and frequently gets away with it, because there are no more audits of his log book.
For example how can you audit instrument flight time claimed as in cloud? You cannot. Take the case of one captain who flew from Brisbane to Melbourne in a Boeing 737. Apart from initial take off until short final the flight was on autopilot and in gin clear fine weather.
On arrival Melbourne as his co-pilot was making out the trip record (which was subject to a standard CASA audit), the captain said "Oh! Put me down for three hours instrument flying time for instrument currency." The F/O astonished, replied "But we were never in IMC." "Do as you are told" replied the captain. He knew his cheating could never be proved.
Fake logging of instrument flight time, which includes logging of command time when clearly the pilot concerned was the support pilot only, is wide spread. But whichever way you regard it, it is blatant cheating and dishonest.
Earlier I mentioned it happening in the civilian world. I don't know about present day practices in the military, but during my 18 years of military flying, pilots were required to have their log books checked for accuracy every month and signed by a certifying officer. Every six months the pilot was required to submit a six-monthly flying return which was checked with his log book by internal audit. It was unheard of to log false hours.
In the airline world, it would be rare to see regulatory audit of log book claimed hours. For some pilots, logging of true co-pilot time is seen as degrading. Instead the situation often exists where a co-pilot is given a "leg" by the captain and logs that leg as in command under supervision rather than log it as co-pilot time in the co-pilot column. In command under supervision is regarded by some as superior quality flying hours versus mundane co-pilot hours. A trifle pathetic, don't you think? That said, each State regulatory authority may mandate how hours must be recorded in a pilot's log book.