Selling and Logbooks

tsts4

tsts4

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tsts4
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For you folks that have sold or purchased an aircraft, what's the preferred format (e.g. PDF, JPEG, etc) and way to make the copies of the logbooks for a buyers review (e.g. scan each page on a scanner/copier/printer, take a pic with a phone, etc)?
 
tsts4 said:
For you folks that have sold or purchased an aircraft, what's the preferred format (e.g. PDF, JPEG, etc) and way to make the copies of the logbooks for a buyers review (e.g. scan each page on a scanner/copier/printer, take a pic with a phone, etc)?
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The guy I bought my plane from scanned with a phone, converted to PDF, uploaded to Google drive, and shared the link. Worked great. He is an amateur broker, buys and sells 2 or 3 planes a year, so he has his system worked out.
 
Agree. Scanning on a flatbed is ideal and most readable, of course, but a slower process. These days, most people snap photos with a phone and insert the pics into a PDF file. Fast and easy. Ideally one PDF file per logbook. Most PDF programs will let you adjust the resolution/quality of the images in the file so they are readable, yet not too big a file that it can't be easily emailed.

C.
 
The first thing I did after buying my airplane was to photo every page of the log books. You never know when fate could take the physical copies away. Just update each year after the annual. Then it's easy to store in the cloud and share to prospective buyers. I didn't bother converting to PDF, just store the JPEGs.
 
A broker turned me on to TurboScan for copying logbooks. It automatically captures successive pages, in high quality using a cell phone/tablet, and inserts them into a PDF document. As about as easy as it can get for this non-tech saavy pilot. I have all my logs digitized from prior to my purchase (a 1981 model so plenty of books) and I periodically add new entries via TurboScan.
 
Scanner Pro for iPhone. It takes seconds per page and will convert to PDF, do OCR, and upload to your Dropbox all automatically. I think I paid $5 for the app a decade ago. Buyers can download nice, neat, searchable logbooks that way.
 
Microsoft Lens is free and fabulous so they'll probably kill it soon or e*************y it all up with AI features. I do them one-handed now on prebuys when the logs aren't already scanned (because reasons?) -- because I want to refer to them later. Even on some real fossils it takes < 1hr and usually < 30mn.

PDF is what I do. One file per physical book. Numbered/indexed just like the books (N12345 Airframe 1.pdf, N12345 Airframe 2.pdf.... etc)
 
Snapped a pic and used I think pdf viewer?
 
I spent some time scanning in all the logbooks for the 310, using the flatbed scanner at work. Unfortunately, for reasons unknown to me, it did not get the full width of some of the books, so I may (when time and energy allow) go back and re-scan those books a page at a time instead of a two-page spread. The bigger annoyance was the handful of times when somebody stapled a small document related to a logbook entry into the book, obscuring multiple entries.

I'm not selling the plane but having the logbooks all scanned in will make it easier to find things in them, easier to trust the logbooks with a mechanic, and easier to sell when the time does come.
 
When I bought my plane, the first thing the seller did was send me pdf copies of the logs. As mentioned above, one file per book. Being a 64, there were a bunch of files. They are very clean, probably from a flatbed. I was able to supply them to my mechanic prior to the pre buy for research. She went through the actual logs at the pre buy just to verify everything was on the up and up.
 
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