Do pilots use paper or digital logbook?

[carlapilot]

this is awesome...thank you so much for these answers, as I am a very beginner (yet), I really needed to know how others do. Im going through all, and check.... Thanks!

 

[mscard88]

The Sears catalog in the outhouse was before my time. But my uncle told me that when Sears went to glossy pages the effectiveness went down....

Yeah, more pages needed as a result.

 

[denverpilot]

My plane keeps a log of all flights. I download to spreadsheet for insurance and other needs. Summarize for the log book but haven't done that since 2015.

Fannnnncy.

 

[swoop]

I use a digital logbook, the one that comes with foreflight. Super easy for plugging in times. Especially when you own and it’s all your own hours you have to enter, it remembers what the last entry was. It also helps me to remember currency and if I need to go flying. And if anyone needs a copy, it’s easy to print out. There’s even a way for instructors to add endorsements but I haven’t tried that out. I switched over to digital once I got my PPL and entered my training hours manually from my paper logbook.

 

[donjohnston]

My advice is to keep possession of YOUR logbook. Too valuable to keep it at a flight school. I've taught at many flight schools over the years and none kept student logbooks.

This a thousand times. There is no valid or legitmate reason for a flight school to maintain control or possession of your logbook.

 

[Doug F]

I use paper. I really should go digital but I’m too lazy. After each page is complete, I scan it to my computer then back it up with an external hard drive.

This is a bit off topic but you may want to add an off-site option also. Hard drives go bad (rarely but it happens) and houses flood/burn down/get robbed. By pushing the data somewhere else, you add another layer of protection. You can go free (Google Docs, Apple or Microsofts' online storage) or paid (I love iDrive for convenience and cost).
Our network has multiple layers of reduncance:

• PC/Laptop's hard drive
• For my laptop and one Mac, an attached external usb drive
• Everything gets backed up to a local network drive that has uses two mirrored drives
• Everything we really care about gets pushed to iDrive

 

[denverpilot]

I decided to convert to Papyrus today... mostly just to bother the OP of this thread... Not quite paper, and definitely not digital.

Cardboard would have been cheaper, though... I kinda went all "artsy" and now I have to shop for logbooks on Etsy. Sheesh. Dumb.

 

[jordane93]

This is a bit off topic but you may want to add an off-site option also. Hard drives go bad (rarely but it happens) and houses flood/burn down/get robbed. By pushing the data somewhere else, you add another layer of protection. You can go free (Google Docs, Apple or Microsofts' online storage) or paid (I love iDrive for convenience and cost).
Our network has multiple layers of reduncance:

• PC/Laptop's hard drive
• For my laptop and one Mac, an attached external usb drive
• Everything gets backed up to a local network drive that has uses two mirrored drives
• Everything we really care about gets pushed to iDrive

Yea I was thinking of also backing it up to a cloud as well.

 

[denverpilot]

Yea I was thinking of also backing it up to a cloud as well.

Do. It’s too easy these days.

@EricBe built it right into MyFlightBook for a reasonable donation. Every night straight to Dropbox.

Just don’t forget that “cloud” just means “someone else’s computer”. LOL.

 

[Anymouse]

I decided to convert to Papyrus today... mostly just to bother the OP of this thread... Not quite paper, and definitely not digital.

Cardboard would have been cheaper, though... I kinda went all "artsy" and now I have to shop for logbooks on Etsy. Sheesh. Dumb.

I suggest chiseling it into stone. It has lot's of benefits:

It's a permanent record.
Depending on the size of the stone, it can't be stolen or lost.
For the most part, it won't be damaged by a weather event.
Centuries from now, women will be throwing their panties at it just thinking about the fact that you were a pilot.

 

[denverpilot]

I suggest chiseling it into stone. It has lot's of benefits:

 

[jarinawoz]

I am also interested in this story!

STOP RIGHT THERE.

@carlapilot , if you want I'll get you in touch with my wife and she can illustrate, very passionately, the risks and pains of leaving your actual logbook at a flight school...in her case a very popular University flight school.

It is your official documentation of your training. Maybe a new desk person misplaced it...pain! Maybe you have a spat over billing or a fallout with the fighter pilot CFI...and your log book goes missing or purposely held. You don't want the hassle of having it vanish nor do you want them to have financial or other leverage over you if they elect to hold your logbooks.

 

[jarinawoz]

I was also searching around. here are the pros and cons using paper or digital logbookst
http://clayviation.com/2017/02/22/paper-vs-electronic-flight-logbook/

I have started to use this, as was recommended from a pilot in my flight club. it's customizable, looks nice and it counts nvfr and day flight separated... will be useful if I start my NVFRtraining directly after finishing my PPL..
http://www.flygo-aviation.com/f/pilot-logbook-international/

Somebody else uses this: https://www.foreflight.com/products/logbook/
there are some more apps recommendations here, not all apps in the world, but the most popular ones:
http://pilotapplications.com/logbook-apps/

and I was just googling like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=pil...EYnIsQHMirLoAg&start=10&sa=N&biw=1366&bih=654

The problem is, that many logbooks are really difficult, like its for professionals only, so Im searching the net and asking people since days... this was the result so far

 

[JustinD]

There's plenty of ways to go about this! I use to recommend and feel that through your flight training you should keep both digital and a paper logbook. After that do what's best for you. For years I kept both paper and digital, I stopped doing a paper handwritten logbook sometime during my airline career, I keep it all digital now with 4 backups, and also a printed version of my digital logbook that looks exactly like a jepp paper logbook. Every month I'll go in and print the entries since my last page to add it to the printed logbook. If you decided to keep a paper logbook i would highly recommend also keeping a digital logbook. It really helps you catch any errors and makes it very easy to track a myriad of things like currency etc.

 

[Sinistar]

I am also interested in this story!

I'll tell the story for my wife. She did her first 2 years of college (no aviation program). During the summer between year 1 and 2 she knocked out her PPL at a small part 61 FBO. Her dad told her he'd help with some school costs as long as it was a "normal" degree - in her case math. But she really wanted to be an airline pilot. So at year 3 she moved to UND. Here goal was to complete her math degree and do as much aviation as possible. Initiative

And for some reason (back then) her UND instructor kept her log book. I think it was another female. Maybe it was school policy, who knows. Anyway after like just one week they lost her log book. She said she has never been so ****ed in her life. I think it took almost 2 weeks to find it. Not much was electronically backed up then. I know she went from mad to worried until they found it. And she just didn't care for the attitude. She said it wasn't a anti-female thing...more like a stupid club...like you didn't learn our way kind of crap. In way, that log being lost probably saved her tons of college debt and she ended up learning from some great instructors and some very different airplanes.

So she stayed up there, finished her math degree and moved back to the twin cities and took a regular job. Then as she saved up money, sometimes with a delay of a couple years, knocked out her Instrument, Commercial, Multi-Inline, Multi-where they are each on a wing , Seaplane, Tailwheel. She volunteered a lot and got good time in T-34, Cessna 337(push/pull?), and even some co-pilot/training time in the Mohawk (envy there!!!). To build hours, she flew lots of blood for the Red Cross, her least favorite being in the cold January flights wondering if the plane would start again. I think she was picked up by a commuter airline with around 750hrs. No college debt. And she fell back on that math job after 911 made everything suck in the airline business. Her dad was right.

While we're at it, I can also share her story of "Escrow" for training. She lost her entire escrow for her multi-engine training which set her back another year or so. The little FBO went under. She tried to get her money but the bigger players got to the money first and she lost it all.

So don't let anyone hold your logbook. And don't put money into an escrow to learn to fly. Both are recipes for disaster...especially if you have my wife's luck

 

[denverpilot]

The problem is, that many logbooks are really difficult, like its for professionals only, so Im searching the net and asking people since days... this was the result so far

Keep in mind many of the features and things tracked in most electronic logbooks aren’t really needed at the non-pro pilot level, and you often can hide them or just ignore them in many electronic logbooks if you’re “just” flying as a Private Pilot.

Depends on which ones, but a few have “Private Pilot” modes that turn off many columns and entries, and others you just skip them if they don’t apply.

So even though they look complex, that’s just to get the pilots who need to track all sorts of things you don’t as a new pilot, to buy the software or subscribe.

And of course the paper logbook has lots of columns that can be filled out, too, and there’s different paper logbook formats for both Private and Pro logbook types. But just skipping columns “seems” simpler because you’re used to that.

Most people aren’t used to ignoring 90% of what’s on the screen in software unless they’re low end Excel users. Ha. Joke. But true about Excel.

 

[EricBe]

@EricBe built it right into MyFlightBook for a reasonable donation. Every night straight to Dropbox.
Just don’t forget that “cloud” just means “someone else’s computer”. LOL.[/QUOTE]

True, but in the case of Dropbox/OneDrive/GoogleDrive, that's "all of your computers" in addition to the (heavily redundant servers) in the cloud storage provider's data centers).

 

[TRocket]

Paper the whole paper and nothing but the paper....I'm basically 31 going on 92. Oh well

 

[jarinawoz]

Myself, i hate excel...there are enough excels during work...

Keep in mind many of the features and things tracked in most electronic logbooks aren’t really needed at the non-pro pilot level, and you often can hide them or just ignore them in many electronic logbooks if you’re “just” flying as a Private Pilot.

Depends on which ones, but a few have “Private Pilot” modes that turn off many columns and entries, and others you just skip them if they don’t apply.

So even though they look complex, that’s just to get the pilots who need to track all sorts of things you don’t as a new pilot, to buy the software or subscribe.

And of course the paper logbook has lots of columns that can be filled out, too, and there’s different paper logbook formats for both Private and Pro logbook types. But just skipping columns “seems” simpler because you’re used to that.

Most people aren’t used to ignoring 90% of what’s on the screen in software unless they’re low end Excel users. Ha. Joke. But true about Excel.

 

[jarinawoz]

I also like paper logbooks too, as I like notebooks and diaries etc... but unfortunately this is not enough in 2018... need to catch up with the modern world. Since I have an ipad I really like apps.

There's plenty of ways to go about this! I use to recommend and feel that through your flight training you should keep both digital and a paper logbook. After that do what's best for you. For years I kept both paper and digital, I stopped doing a paper handwritten logbook sometime during my airline career, I keep it all digital now with 4 backups, and also a printed version of my digital logbook that looks exactly like a jepp paper logbook. Every month I'll go in and print the entries since my last page to add it to the printed logbook. If you decided to keep a paper logbook i would highly recommend also keeping a digital logbook. It really helps you catch any errors and makes it very easy to track a myriad of things like currency etc.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Some of the arguments come down to

"White logbook paper is the best!"
"No! You will be in trouble with the FAA unless your logbook has green paper!"
"Oh yeah? What color ink?"

 

[Anymouse]

Some of the arguments come down to

"White logbook paper is the best!"
"No! You will be in trouble with the FAA unless your logbook has green paper!"
"Oh yeah? What color ink?"

Don't laugh. Many years ago on the Red Board there was an argument about whether or not you should use the same pen for all your entries. It was argued that if the FAA detected that you used the same pen, then they would conclude that you pencil whipped your flight time.

Not sure how you pencil whip with a pen though.

 

[deltaindia]

About 12 years ago I started transferring my written log book of 12 years (at the time) over to an exhaustive excel spreadsheet. So now after 24 years of flying, I've got everything on the spreadsheet broken down by every type of time. And it's backed up in numerous places. My endorsements are all scanned and saved on a tab of the Excel workbook. The original logbooks are in the bank safe deposit box. I'm in the process of uploading the local Excel file into Google Sheets. I think over the next 5-10 years, we'll see a lot fewer log books. I don't want to be beholden to a certain app, as they come and go. If I were to go that route, they would have to have a good way of exporting the data back out to Excel in a clean format.

 

[Ghery]

Answer for me: Both.

Both for me

Both ,always like to have a backup hard copy.

Both. Paper logbook that I've maintained since starting flight training in 2000. Two different Excel spreadsheets and MyFlightbook. I like MyFlightbook because it stores the data "in the cloud" and the data is accessible from multiple platforms. But, I keep my log in various formats. Why? Sometimes a little paranoia can be a healthy thing. And I've had an older electronic tool on a PC become unusable when the computer it was on died and the vendor had gone out of business, so I couldn't change to a different computer. Multiple platforms minimize this pain.

 

[bluesideup]

Hi.
The most efficient, and secure, procedure I found, is to keep something you have Total control over, no devices, other people's storage.... PAPER. Keep a Log book you have and carry with you every time you fly, inside a zipped plastic bag, take a pic of every page, backed up by some app. like Avare, or others, and possibly your cell phone, that keep Track of your flights and have the tracks transferred over in another back up like your main PC.. One entry / row per day flight is typically sufficient. You may go to 3-4 airports, legs, but if you return to your starting point, the same day, they can all be entered in the same row / entry Start>X1>X2>X3>Start.This method does not work well for students, you may want to make each entry separate until you get your PP.
I found that Gleim has a very good choice that can be used for beginners all the way to commercial..
If having to take 30 seconds to enter your flight in a log book, is too much for you, you may want to look at flying trucks.
For a new pilot, that may have money issue, this may take a while to accumulate, get a small flight bag with a spare Head set, Handheld radio, Cables connectors / adapter for different planes, Flash lights, Knee board, some EFB maybe a Tablet, small tool kit, some survival gear... and have it with you all the time, don't leave home without it. Many times over the years situations will come up that you may be able to fly when you do not expect, be ready.

 

[Anymouse]

Were you a boy scout?

 

[Ghery]

Were you a boy scout?

I was. Decades ago. And an adult Scout leader 25+ years ago when our son was going through the program. Worked for Tandem Computers back in the 80s and 90s, hence my "problem" with single points of failure.

 

[sarangan]

I keep my logbook on an excel sheet, and use a paper logbook only for dual instruction and endorsements.

 

[Hans Muster]

I’m using the ROTAIR FlightLog (flightmanagement.ch) which has all I need as a helicopter pilot and I’m very happy with it. It’s easy to use and you can have as many custom fields as you want. This pilot logbook app has may official reports and an EXCEL export already included and the best is if some functionality is missing there is a big chance that the developer of the program extends the App.
There are some other small features included, you can get METARs TAFs NOTAMs and a Time calculator is included as well, which make the damn paperwork much easier .
What I like most is that the first year was free and now I can write review in the Apple store and get a free extension for some month !

 

[nj-pilot]

I just use Excel (well, actually Google sheets) to back up my paper. But I don't fly that much so its not that hard to enter both places.

Its not a bad idea to snap a photo of each page as you fill it as well, to capture the signatures.

Exactly what I do. As soon as the rest of the aviation world abandons paper, I'm happy to follow suit. It's the endorsements that make me need the paper.

 

[James331]

Exactly what I do. As soon as the rest of the aviation world abandons paper, I'm happy to follow suit. It's the endorsements that make me need the paper.

You can always write it up on a blank sheet, scan and insert it into that flight on your excel sheet or foreflight log or whatever. I wouldn’t use the term method for someone doing primary training, but for a BFR or something sure

 

[denverpilot]

Exactly what I do. As soon as the rest of the aviation world abandons paper, I'm happy to follow suit. It's the endorsements that make me need the paper.

Good logging software has the ability to attach files or photos and a couple pro level ones can also track common endorsements in their databases.

Shoot a cell phone photo of the endorsement on paper and attach it to the endorsements section of the software or on dumber software the flight itself (or both) and you can go all electronic.

Many also have a place to shoot backup photos of certificates and Medicals and such which isn’t technically legal to fly with but a “nice to have” just so it’s all in one place.

[edit: Because autocorrect turns Medicals into “Medicaid” and while I was editing, “Mexicans” when you’re not looking. Hahahaha.]

 

[Brandon Black]

New to the forum, I use both paper and ForeFlight, and I definitely would not leave my log book with anyone

 

[Palmpilot]

Welcome!

 

[Collin Kaufman]

I keep my logbook at home for the most part. Right after I fly I log everything on an app called ZuluLog and then as soon as I get home I'll transfer the data to my paper logbook.

 

[Ryan F.]

At this stage of the game, I strongly recommend that all beginning pilots start with an electronic logbook. The advantages add up, and other than sentimentality there's really nothing a paper logbook holds over its modern counterpart. Especially for career pilots, or pilots moving along a path which involves multiple certificates and/or ratings, the electronic logbook makes life a lot easier, is far safer in terms of being backed up, allows easy manipulation of data and most of them will crank out an 8710 for you on the spot.

My tale of woe involving logbooks goes back to 2015 when I realized I was going to be leaving my position as Chief Pilot for a two-jet operation for greener pastures. I knew I needed an accurate count of my hours. I had gotten very comfortable in that job and stopped logging my flights, figuring I had the flight logs we maintained for the airplanes themselves. I didn't realize just how comfortable I had become until I cracked open my third of three Jeppesen Professional logbooks and found that the last recorded flight was 2006. Nightmarishly, I was flying 700-850 hours per year almost every year at that job, an insane pace for a part 91 gig, and I realized the task ahead of me was monumental.

I made the decision then and there to switch to an electronic logbook (I chose Zululog) and that, once I caught up, I'd never let it lapse again. Once I got the flight logs from the company all rounded up I did some basic math and I realized I had 9 years and over 6,000 hours of unrecorded flight time to log. Luckily I had kept a little text file on my computer for my personal flying in pistons, so I had that too. I realized the task ahead of me was immense. As I started transferring the data I got a little better and faster at it. I ended up committing to a month of entries before breakfast every morning. But depending on the flights, it would still sometimes slow to a crawl, and I'd only knock out a couple of weeks due to the sheer number of legs, flights, and details to copy over. Also, some days, if I was on a trip somewhere, I'd spend hours working on it, and might knock out more. It took almost 5 months of painstaking effort, every single day, to finally get all the data transferred over, although I did forward my piston flights from my first logbook which amounted to about 2,000 hours. Those are summed up as forwarded totals and still only technically exist in the actual paper logbook for now.

Anyway, DON'T BE LIKE ME. New pilots today have a huge advantage: readily available online logbook services which they can use day one. Hey, if you want to keep a paper logbook for sentimentality's sake, that's up to you. And, some pilots are only logging a few hours per year. It's totally up to you. But if you're moving down some kind of track, do yourself a favor and start with an electronic logbook today. Or if you have a few hundred hours or less logged in paper, make the switch now. It won't take long to transfer hours in the <500 range and you'll be awfully glad you did one day.

By the way, it was a good thing I did what I did. The job I have today asked for "the last page of my logbook" and a summary of my hours. I was able to print off a beautiful, perfectly accurate summary from Zululog. They were very impressed.

 

[Anymouse]

I think I was about 750 or so hours when I made the leap to an electronic logbook. I actually gained almost 100 hours of flight time due to math errors and a couple times that I copied the wrong numbers from the previous page.

 

[CrimsonFlyer]

I second the recommendation of an electronic logbook. Makes it immensely easier to analyze data and check currency. All endorsements can be done electronically if the CFIs are savvy.


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