Electronic logbooks?

DE727UPS

DE727UPS

Well-Known Member
I'm so old I have no experience with electronic logbooks. I have a friend who's son is starting flight training and wanted to know what kind of logbook to get him. I thought maybe electronic was the way to go now but wondered how the works down the road for interviews?
 
If he is just starting flight training, I recommend using a paper logbook for all entries. This makes the endorsements and sign-offs from CFIs much easier. I would use this paper logbook throughout training and during his time building phase as a CFI.

Sometime during his training, have him start transferring entries into an electronic program (I recommend LogbookPro) on his computer and/or smart phone. It's best to start this early on so he doesn't have to do entries totaling thousands of hours.

Once he gets to the regional airline, log time ONLY on the electronic program. Just keep the paper copies in safe storage since they contain all the original endorsements. Once he gets to the interview, he will bring his original logbooks and print out a nice binder for all the entries in the electronic version.
 
DE727UPS said:
I'm so old I have no experience with electronic logbooks. I have a friend who's son is starting flight training and wanted to know what kind of logbook to get him. I thought maybe electronic was the way to go now but wondered how the works down the road for interviews?
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Is he planning on shooting for a flying career? If so I’ll second logbook pro. The combination of logbook pro plus Airline Pilots Daily Log is fantastic! Logbook pro made filling out applications a breeze. They even have a report that extracts totals exactly the way you’d enter them into airline apps. Then once he starts flying professionally APDL is simple. I import a trip and that’s pretty much it. At the end of the day I tell it which leg I was pf and pm. It does the rest including fetching oooi, tracking 117, showing departure gate, and even has a way to search for viable commutes.

if he’s just doing recreational flying I like the idea of using paper books during training (for the endorsements and sheer cathartic awesomeness of filling one out and having it) then just switching over to ForeFlight
 
The thing with electronic logbooks for starting out is these days it’s fairly easy to port between platforms (some will even do it for you) so if he ends up with one of the airline pilot centered ones it should be a snap to move over from ForeFlight.
 
poser765 said:
Is he planning on shooting for a flying career? If so I’ll second logbook pro. The combination of logbook pro plus Airline Pilots Daily Log is fantastic! Logbook pro made filling out applications a breeze. They even have a report that extracts totals exactly the way you’d enter them into airline apps. Then once he starts flying professionally APDL is simple. I import a trip and that’s pretty much it. At the end of the day I tell it which leg I was pf and pm. It does the rest including fetching oooi, tracking 117, showing departure gate, and even has a way to search for viable commutes.

if he’s just doing recreational flying I like the idea of using paper books during training (for the endorsements and sheer cathartic awesomeness of filling one out and having it) then just switching over to ForeFlight
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He's career oriented but if he went electronic from the start how do you handle the solo endorsements, ect? I guess you could just create and endorsements document and print it out, fill it out.
 
I haven’t played with it because I don’t deal with endorsements anymore but I see ForeFlight has an endorsement functionality and I’d imagine that includes the ability to print a hard copy just like their logbook.
 
DE727UPS said:
He's career oriented but if he went electronic from the start how do you handle the solo endorsements, ect? I guess you could just create and endorsements document and print it out, fill it out.
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Disclaimer… I didn’t switch to digital until after all my flight training. I believe some of the logbooks have abilities to scan and add cfi signatures and endorsements. He could also just run two separate books. One paper and one digital. Best of all the worlds, and I stand by there being something uniquely nostalgic with having a paper logbook.
 
Been using Myflightbook.com for electronic forever
Free, keeps getting better every time I look
 
I highly recommend the electronic logbook. If your friend is an Apple person I recommend LogTen Pro from Corradine aviationyou can use it on all apple devices.
For Microsoft based people, use logbook pro.

LogTen Pro allows for digital signatures. The instructor can use a stylus on a tablet and add their signature. This locks the entry so it can’t be changed later.
I switched to electronic after getting my CFI, as they were just getting popular at the time. I made a pdf scan of my endorsements, and printed the whole book for my interviews. Interviewers are used to it and like it. I brought my old paper logs as well, but if your e-log is the original it is completely legal and acceptable.
 
Also, you can have a separate document for solo endorsements etc.. one of my instructors did this and printed them out on a nice clean page, physically signed them, and I also made a scanned copy.
I know many of us aren’t used to E-logbooks, but it’s part of the times and much more convenient.
 
DE727UPS said:
He's career oriented but if he went electronic from the start how do you handle the solo endorsements, ect? I guess you could just create and endorsements document and print it out, fill it out.
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Foreflight does it this way and you’ll never lose it.

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I always wrote comments about who I flew with, any anomalies, whether or not they were nice about it. I’ll occasionally take one out and peruse through the entries. Reading my own comments about taking my dad flying for the first time, not his first flight but the first with me as PIC, still makes me happy. I’d suggest both.
 
knot4u said:
I always wrote comments about who I flew with, any anomalies, whether or not they were nice about it. I’ll occasionally take one out and peruse through the entries. Reading my own comments about taking my dad flying for the first time, not his first flight but the first with me as PIC, still makes me happy. I’d suggest both.
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I alway write names of Med crew in addition to any comments. I sometimes get weird looks when we talk about a flight and I pull it up in ForeFlight and go “oh yeah that was May of 2019 and your partner was joe smith”
 
DE727UPS said:
He's career oriented but if he went electronic from the start how do you handle the solo endorsements, ect? I guess you could just create and endorsements document and print it out, fill it out.
Click to expand...
Most of the commercially available (including Foreflight and even free like MyFlightBook) onescmake CFI digital signatures and endorsements easy and FAA-acceptable.
 
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