Messed up log book

T

Tiger815

Well-Known Member
I've been in the process of putting all my flight time into a spreadsheet so that I could easily break out my times any way I wanted. I know there are electronic log books available but see no reason why they'd be superior to a spreadsheet, but that's another issue.

What I have found is lots of mistakes found their way in my logbook. I've found instructors that failed to record PIC time when it should have been logged (sometimes the same instructor was inconsitent in how they made their entry. I've also found errors of my own such as failing to enter times in every column requred for cross country flights/night/etc. I've also found errors in my addition. What this all means, is the totals row on nearly every page of my log book looks like crap, but I'm confident the times are correct.

From the perspective of a potential emplyer would I have been better off with a clean looking, but inaccurate logbook or will they appreciate the effort in going back over my log book entries to insure the times presented are absolutely correct?
 
well as long as your honest about all of your time i don't think it's going to matter very much. no one is perfect and most logbooks are going to have errors. if you go back and fix some of them just make it look professional by not using whiteout and just putting a note of in in the remarks.
 
There are various ways to correct logbooks which some folks can share. Depending on how many hours you have, it might not be that big of a deal to buy another logbook and just re-record everything.
 
E6BAV8R said:
There are various ways to correct logbooks which some folks can share. Depending on how many hours you have, it might not be that big of a deal to buy another logbook and just re-record everything.
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Sorry to hijack this thread but is it possible to use a primarily online logbook for you flight training. PPL-ATP. I am starting my training soon and would like to know.
 
I write totals in pencil because of this. Corrections in ink, and you can rewrite the totals.

Also- if it's many pages back, just note it on the next page you add up. You can even tape a piece of paper there with a note stating what you're correcting. (include page numbers/dates whatever)
 
bLizZuE said:
I write totals in pencil because of this. Corrections in ink, and you can rewrite the totals.

Also- if it's many pages back, just note it on the next page you add up. You can even tape a piece of paper there with a note stating what you're correcting. (include page numbers/dates whatever)
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Consider my debacle a cautionary tale for guys starting out. I have around 1100TT and it seems I've found errors in just about every category but my total time. I clearly should have done these reviews more often, and paid a lot more attention to what my instructors were putting in my log rather than just assuming they were making correct entries. The largest errors are due to instructor entries (I had several different CFI during my multiple aborted attempts at the instrument ticket before getting serious about it) but once it's wrong, its difficult to bring the change forward though the log without it looking pretty bad. Better to catch it early, so the fix appears on as few pages as possible.
 
Someone recommended the following to me, and it worked well:

As soon as I finished training for new certificates I entered everything from day 1 into Logbook Pro, found a lot of errors, and corrected them in my logbook. Then I started a fresh new logbook to record all my future time. Since I'm the only one writing in my logbook now (working as a CFI) I can keep it consistent and neat. So by the time I'm ready for an interview I'll have the 250 hours of time in my first logbook (which seems to have a correction of some kind on nearly every page), and my next couple hundred hours basically 100% correct, clean, and without corrections in my new logbook.
 
I think a correct logbook is better than a neat one... but I found a solution for both (besides being perfect and not making mistakes)....

I wrote an asterisk next to each row of a flight that had mistakes on it. I added up all my mistakes and compensated for them on a single row in my logbook. In the lil' space that's provided, I wrote down the dates for which the corrections were imposed... wrote something like "Corrections for 4/19/06- not Dual Given; 7/4/06- X country flight; etc. etc."
 
also- don't be afraid to use a few lines for corrections. not every single line has to be an entry.
 
Before my Cape Air interview I went through and put my logbook into Excel. That was a 12 hour process I hope not to repeat any time soon.

What I found can be summed up in one word "disaster." All of my times were off; nothing added up and nothing balanced. The biggest thing I found was I had 20 hours over on my single engine time!

After I found my errors I just put in a line correcting all my math mistakes, in my current logbook (as I would if was just another flight) and in the remarks I put "math correction."

Then I owned up to it in the interview. All I said was, "if you'll notice the last entry I corrected my math mistakes by putting all my logbooks into Excel." His reply was, "uh huh."

That was that and I got the job. So moral of the story, just make the corrections and don't try to hide them. It doesn't matter if your logbook is an unmitigated disaster -- mine was.
 
There are a number of threads on this topic right here on JC. The best advice has all ready been given: correct is more important than neat.

I had a similar experience as others on here; about 2 years ago I created an Excel spreadsheet and spent literally 2 weeks, many hours a day, jamming about 1,500 hours worth (about 1,200 line entries) into it. I uncovered tons and tons of errors both in my own logbook and (more importantly) in the USAF's record of my flight time.

I have a whole tab in my Excel logbook that explains, line-by-line, the errors in my paper logs and my USAF log -- and that those errors are corrected in the Excel log.

It's much better to let the computer do the math for you.
 
Found out my loggbook is also messed up... How do most people edit the Totals below .. i added my Totals up wrong and not really sure how to correct it. i know i could just scratch out the previous total and replace it below but since its a couple pages back that would mean i have to cross out other totals....
 
I did an audit about a year ago.

None of my times were seriously off, but every collom had some math errors. I figured out what the differences were and made a entry to correct them, +2.8 SEL, -.7 MEL, +1.5 x-cty, ect. I put "corrections from logbook audit" in the remarks, and went on from there.

No biggie, nobody has a perfectly accurate logbook. As long as you aren't deliberately logging anything you shouldn't it's not a problem.
 
worm19 said:
Found out my loggbook is also messed up... How do most people edit the Totals below .. i added my Totals up wrong and not really sure how to correct it. i know i could just scratch out the previous total and replace it below but since its a couple pages back that would mean i have to cross out other totals....
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In the next line correct your math mistakes and move on. Just like the previous poster said.

Although, I'll admit that seeing -19 in a logbook is kinda weird. :)
 
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