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Why the he11 would anyone need something like that??
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif J/K
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The reasons for using logbook software are numerous. Most likely you are already aware of what you can do with a spreadsheet and may have put some times into Excel so you could generate various totals, or figure out the info needed for completing an 8710 if you're flying under FAA regulations.
LogTen has many advantages over a spreadsheet:
<ul type="square">[*]Easier interface, designed specifically for flight tracking
[*]Automatic Generation of FAA 8710 Form totals for any category
[*]Creation of professional printed reports with powerful HTML
formatting capabilities
[*]Power of fast, reliable integrated SQL database.
[*]Your data is written to the database every time a field is changed, so you're much less likely to lose any data should your computer crash for some reason.
[*]The relational nature of using a database, means that you only enter aircraft info for a given aircraft once, then that aircraft is "linked" to each flight that was in that aircraft.
This means that if you change some information or add something new to this aircraft later it applies to every flight that was in that aircraft.
You also have the idea of child records, so for example a given flight can have an infinite number of legs, operations, crew members, and your own custom properties. You can't do that with a spreadsheet.
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From the Airline Captains and commercial pilots I've spoken with, they all recommend putting your time in an electronic logbook as early as possible to prevent yourself having to do it all at once when you've got hundreds if not thousands of hours. Having your time at your fingertips in any combination is critical for interviews when the time comes. If all you've got is paper logbooks, or even Excel it's going to be time consuming to answer
questions like:
How many multi-engine night landings do you have in Aspen, CO?
How much PIC time do you have in a Cessna Caravan? Amphibian?
Instrument Time?
Clear skies, mild winds, and happy flying!
Noah
