Stupid Logging Question

loudbagel

loudbagel

Pre-takeoff checklist
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Hummingbird Saltalamacchia
So I started flying a new plane, my old plane had a Hobbs and it was super easy to figure out how much time I flew. But the new plane Im flying the "timing" device is built into the tach.

Before the flight it read 2094.41
After my short flight with 3 takeoffs and landings it read 2094.43

So did I log .2 hours?
or 0.02 Hours?

My logbook format is 1.0 = 1 hour .05 = half hour , and I just cannot understand what the time logged for this flight would be.

Thanks for the help?
 
The REAL answer is "Use your watch." But in answer to your question, the math says log .02 hours. But that isn't realistic. I would guess that three takeoffs and landings, if you did full stop and taxi back would have been about .4 hours.

Also, I suspect something may be amiss with the hours recorder on your tach. I would pay attention to it and compare what you see on your watch to what the tach says.
 
In the absence of a HOBBS, I would go off of block time (engine start to engine stop). Add minutes, divide by 60.

Something doesn't seem right with those TACH times. Recording hundredths of an hour?
 
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So using my watch would I start logging at wheels up...or engine start? Stop time?
 
You start logging when the airplane first moves for the purpose of flying until it stops moving when the flight is completed.

Normally that corresponds pretty closely to engine startup to shutdown.
 
loudbagel said:
So using my watch would I start logging at wheels up...or engine start? Stop time?
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I thought that, technically, block out to block in meant from when you started taxiing to when you parked, although many people use engine start.
 
Well Mari, I think it's because our airplanes shake so much when we start them that we consider it movement for the purpose of flight! Unlike your SMOOOOOOTH jets <grin>.
 
TMetzinger said:
Well Mari, I think it's because our airplanes shake so much when we start them that we consider it movement for the purpose of flight! Unlike your SMOOOOOOTH jets <grin>.
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:rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

Also, if you are still "building time" you could release the brake and roll forward a few inches. :D
 
TMetzinger said:
You start logging when the airplane first moves for the purpose of flying until it stops moving when the flight is completed.
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I log from engine start to engine stop. That is period in which my certificate is in peril if I do something stupid.
 
loudbagel said:
So using my watch would I start logging at wheels up...or engine start? Stop time?
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Tim has it. Read the definition of flight time in FAR 1.1.

Bob Gardner
 
I log from the time I leave the garage to get to the airport to the time I get back to the bar and start drinking. I did three touch and goes in seven hours last weekend.
 
I use tach time only for logging AIRCRAFT hours in my maintenance logbook.

I use my panel mounted, digital elapsed timer for pilot logbook hours. I start the timer after engine warm up when I start taxiing away from the hangar and stop it when I get back to the hangar and shut it down.

This brings up a point too. I need to get in the habit of using the panel clock for my logbook hours, so that I can use elapsed timer for other things during the flight. This is because I am in the very beginning stages of my Instrument training.
 
FLIGHT TIME (for logging) is as stated, the time the aircraft first moves under it's own power for the purposes of flight until it comes to rest at the end. It's real (clock) block-to-block time. The FAA has no issues with you using other reasonable approximations (HOBBS meters and tach time are fine, my argument is my aircraft moves when it's started up and it doesn't completely come to rest until the engine stops.


TIME IN SERVICE is the time the aircraft is off the ground. Again the FAA doesn't get worked up about as long as you're consistent. Mine Hobbs is wired to the gear to make the time in service. I don't even have a recording tach.
 
TMetzinger said:
You start logging when the airplane first moves for the purpose of flying until it stops moving when the flight is completed.
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If that sounds familiar, it's a near-exact quote from the official FAA answer in 14 CFR 1.1...

Normally that corresponds pretty closely to engine startup to shutdown.
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...and that's the unofficial answer you'll get from any local FAA inspector.

And as Greg said up front, if your tach only rolled over 0.02 during the time it took to get three takeoffs and landings (unless you were towed to the end of the runway, started the engine, did three bounces down the runway, cleared the runway, shut down, and were towed in), something ain't right with your tach. The scary part is that if that's true, your engine, prop, and airframe may have a lot more use than you think since new, last overhaul, last oil change, etc.
 
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TMetzinger said:
You start logging when the airplane first moves for the purpose of flying until it stops moving when the flight is completed.

Normally that corresponds pretty closely to engine startup to shutdown.
Click to expand...

There goes my idea of taxi around for 3 hours :mad:
 
You don't actually have to fly. Example. I started up, taxied out, all fine, started my runup and found my left brake had sprung a leak. I taxied back, and logged all the time. I was moving for the purpose of flight, it's flight time.

That's how I logged it, anyway.
 
Flight time incorporates decision making as well as manipulation of the controls...
Decision making begins when the intent to commit flight begins.. Thus total PIC time is not just when clutching the yoke and vibrating... It started back at the DUATS terminal with the gathering of weather, etc... (no fair including 3 days of being weathered in as continuous PIC)
It continued as you went out on the ramp and preflighted, etc. etc...
It ends when as you are walking away from the secured and proplocked airplane and you look back to be sure you DID tie it down...

Now, since I no longer keep a formal log it doesn't matter a fig to me how YOU do it - but those are the guide lines I learned right after WWII and to this day I have not seen an FAA letter or administrative law judge ruling that changes it...
In addition I will not disagree that student pilots may warrant a tighter recording of their 'flight' time as they are not yet PIC...

denny-o
 
TMetzinger said:
You don't actually have to fly. Example. I started up, taxied out, all fine, started my runup and found my left brake had sprung a leak. I taxied back, and logged all the time. I was moving for the purpose of flight, it's flight time.

That's how I logged it, anyway.
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You can log it that way, but that's not the way the reg reads.
Flight time means:

(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing;
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If the aircraft didn't land, it ain't flight time.
 
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Well, now that everyone has discussed the merits of logging time from start to finish and the possible inaccuracy of the tach accounting for time in the OP situation.

Let's talk about your math problems. If 1hr = 1.0 = 60 minutes
And you think .05 is a half hour or 30 min, your math is off.
.05 is 3minutes, not 30 minutes.
 
Ron Levy said:
You can log it that way, but that's not the way the reg reads.
If the aircraft didn't land, it ain't flight time.
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I'll go back and look... I'm pretty sure the "after landing" is part of a rewrite.

So if you eject/bail out of a civil airplane, it's not flight time either? If you crash and walk away?
 
TMetzinger said:
I'll go back and look... I'm pretty sure the "after landing" is part of a rewrite.

So if you eject/bail out of a civil airplane, it's not flight time either? If you crash and walk away?
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It doesn't have to be a good landing landing.
 
TMetzinger said:
I'll go back and look... I'm pretty sure the "after landing" is part of a rewrite.

So if you eject/bail out of a civil airplane, it's not flight time either? If you crash and walk away?
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A dumb one if it is...

FAA is opening themselves up to some interesting problems when the lawyers start saying taxiing isn't piloting the aircraft... it's driving a car around, until there's a landing. :)
 
denverpilot said:
A dumb one if it is...

FAA is opening themselves up to some interesting problems when the lawyers start saying taxiing isn't piloting the aircraft... it's driving a car around, until there's a landing. :)
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Mechanics (without pilot license) taxi aircraft around airports everyday.
 
Does the flight time end in this case when the airplane hits the ground or when the pilot does?:rofl:

And for any newcomers who are scratching their head and saying "are these guys serious?" the answer is "not really". We may dissect regs to death in here but it tends to be useful. For instance, I didn't have the "after landing" part of the flight time definition in my brain, either because I forgot it or it was changed after I learned it and I never really looked it up again.

The whole "eject/crash" thing is just done for amusement.
 
TMetzinger said:
Does the flight time end in this case when the airplane hits the ground or when the pilot does?
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The pilot stops logging time when he/she/it touches down. Time for the aircraft logs stops when the smoking hole is created. So, in general, since the aircraft will get down first the pilot gets to log a little extra time that won't count against the 100 hour inspection for the aircraft (etc.)

But sometimes, there are complications:

Gagarin ejected after reentry and descended under his own parachute, as was planned. However for many years the Soviet Union denied this, because the flight would not have been recognized for various FAI world records unless the pilot had accompanied his craft to a landing.
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Rotor&Wing said:
Mechanics (without pilot license) taxi aircraft around airports everyday.
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Understand. I was talking about if they went after a pilot's certificate for an activity a lawyer could now easily say wasn't "aviation" at all.

The mechanics have to have a company taxi checkout and certificate in the 121 world too, don't they?

I remember ours did in the early 90s... Never asked if that was company or FAA issued but I assumed it was company under whatever rules they wrote into the company ops spec.

I figured it didn't matter much anyway... The insurance company would have demanded it if the FAA or the Company didn't. FAA or Company requiring it just saved the insurance company the hassle of creating a taxi checkout requirement. ;)

What was more interesting was there wasn't an official (paperwork) trail for push-back. My gate lead just decided one day that I was driving the Paymover and told me to shove an A-300 out into the aisle, carefully. He had a technique for teaching which included picking a day when the alley was clear, no snow/ice on the ramp, and an admonition to go slow, but about five pushes later I was doing it in glycol-covered ice.

I just remember thinking about how informal it all was compared to the rest of aviation since I was also training for the PPL at the time. He was on the headset, with the requirement to watch him for hand signals like a hawk, and there were a few folks he never trusted pushing since they had zero attention span. But it was basically all his judgement call. No test, no paper, just "hop in" one day, "here's how to shift it, here's two wheel steering, here's four wheel crabbing, go slow, watch me, don't hammer the brakes and shake all the passengers up or the cockpit will complain, be careful."

I do miss driving the Paymover. Pushing MD-80s was a bigger pain than A-300s. The MD-80s length and a small alley made it "entertaining" when we were deicing at the gate. I remember uttering a couple of "holy ****"s a couple of times that winter.

I just see possibilities there in that wording for an industrious lawyer to make the argument now where there wasn't even a crack of light around the door in that rule prior to the "after landing" change... If it truly was a change.

Be interesting to see what Tim finds on that.
 
I should think the pilot time stops when the pilot leaves the aircraft, there being no unpowered parachute category/class to log PIC time under even if s/he is the sole occupant of that aircraft, but s/he then gets to log the jump.
 
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