Pilot's log archiving

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chippy

Filing Flight Plan
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Dec 6, 2024
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Cher
As I have mentioned in other threads, I am a rusty pilot looking to resume training to be a CFI after 20-something years of absence. I am grateful that only by some accident of circumstance, I managed to retain my logbook. It is in pristine condition through no particular intention on my part. I only have a PP, with several endorsements so my first act, after renewing my medical, will be to get my IR. I've been out of the left seat so long that I'm not sure how much, if any, my previous time will help from a practical matter of having lost some familiarity. However, it is nice to know that I meet almost all the requirements for an IR except for twenty hours of simulated hood time in a plane and instrument ground school (I have 20 hours in a simulator with an instructor, all my night and cross-country hours etc). While I have no intention of short-cutting myself on training, I do appreciate that I still have my logbook, its true value forgotten for so long. So, this has me wondering if I shouldn't back up or archive my logbook in some way? Do any of you have copies of your logbook? If so, is it digital or hard copy? I imagine there are cloud based electronic log books now. Are these allowed for a check-ride, let's say?

As a side, I owned my own Bonanza and essentially stopped logging flights after a couple hundred hours. I know, I know... Is there any way to claim those hours or rebuild that portion of the Pilot's Log based on the tach? Should I acknowledge the time with a single entry or just chalk it up as lesson learned?
 
I take a picture of my logbook when I finish a page. You can print all the pages for a hard copy if you want, or keep it digitally
 
At this point, unless you can show some contemporaneous evidence, I wouldn't worry about the missing flights. After 20 years away it really won't matter much. You'll still have to get up top snuff VFR and perhaps learn some new equipment. Not only GPS but glass is quickly replacing analog instruments even in older aircraft. But if you want to, there is FAA guidance on the subject of lost logbooks which may apply. I'll pull them up and post them.

On the instrument training side, your prior experience may help get your scan and aircraft control back up to standard quickly. but that only covers 10-20% of instrument training - the other 80-90% is rules, procedures, and new avionics some of which you either need to be relearned, but much of which you probably never knew.

Coincidentally, looks like I'm getting started with someone who has been out of the loop for a few years longer than you.
 
chippy said:
As I have mentioned in other threads, I am a rusty pilot looking to resume training to be a CFI after 20-something years of absence. I am grateful that only by some accident of circumstance, I managed to retain my logbook. It is in pristine condition through no particular intention on my part. I only have a PP, with several endorsements so my first act, after renewing my medical, will be to get my IR. I've been out of the left seat so long that I'm not sure how much, if any, my previous time will help from a practical matter of having lost some familiarity. However, it is nice to know that I meet almost all the requirements for an IR except for twenty hours of simulated hood time in a plane and instrument ground school (I have 20 hours in a simulator with an instructor, all my night and cross-country hours etc). While I have no intention of short-cutting myself on training, I do appreciate that I still have my logbook, its true value forgotten for so long. So, this has me wondering if I shouldn't back up or archive my logbook in some way? Do any of you have copies of your logbook? If so, is it digital or hard copy? I imagine there are cloud based electronic log books now. Are these allowed for a check-ride, let's say?

As a side, I owned my own Bonanza and essentially stopped logging flights after a couple hundred hours. I know, I know... Is there any way to claim those hours or rebuild that portion of the Pilot's Log based on the tach? Should I acknowledge the time with a single entry or just chalk it up as lesson learned?
Click to expand...

Yes, there are many online logbooks available now. It's quickly becoming the standard over paper. I use and recommend Myflightbook.com, which is a website and an IOS/Android app, and the developer, @EricBe is a participant on this board. It is free although a small annual donation does get you automated backups, which I find very worthwhile.

It (and really any of the others) will blow you away with the features they have compared to paper logbooks. Easy totals with whatever criteria you want, currency tracking, automatic logging, on and on. Check them out.

And yes, they can be used for checkrides. CFIs can enter legal, valid endorsements in them with digital signatures and the whole bit.

For backing up your existing logbook, that's easy - just take pictures with your phone of each page (including the endorsement pages). You'll be done in just a minute or two. Save them to Google Photos or whatever your favorite cloud-based service is.

I would recommend you take the time to enter your previous time into one of the online logbooks (though I may skip entering most of the remarks unless they're particularly meaningful). Depending on how many hours you had, it may take a while, but it results in a good, thorough, online logbook. And it may be fun remembering some old flights. Do a page or two a day and it won't take long.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
See paragraph 5-172 here.
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Most recently I had an applicant come with 8710s that got him up to a certain point, with logbooks showing more recent flights to meet requirements. Obviously 8710s show specific things, but don’t show every flight requirement.

A while back I had an applicant with a piece of paper that had times written on it, and a notarized letter essentially saying, “I lost my logbooks. This is how much time I have.” That didn’t fly, and neither did he.
 
midlifeflyer said:
At this point, unless you can show some contemporaneous evidence, I wouldn't worry about the missing flights. After 20 years away it really won't matter much. You'll still have to get up top snuff VFR and perhaps learn some new equipment. Not only GPS but glass is quickly replacing analog instruments even in older aircraft. But if you want to, there is FAA guidance on the subject of lost logbooks which may apply. I'll pull them up and post them.

On the instrument training side, your prior experience may help get your scan and aircraft control back up to standard quickly. but that only covers 10-20% of instrument training - the other 80-90% is rules, procedures, and new avionics some of which you either need to be relearned, but much of which you probably never knew.

Coincidentally, looks like I'm getting started with someone who has been out of the loop for a few years longer than you.
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Agree that OP's previously logged time is not super useful WRT training, but I would add that for insurance purposes going forward, it could be quite valuable. I would try to rebuild it to the extent that I could, knowing that if you want to use it towards flying professionally, they'll probably question it. Insurance though, generally just wants a number, and a couple hundred hours of high performance retract time could make a big difference if you think you'll own an airplane again.

As a couple have mentioned above, I take a photo of each completed page that is automatically backed up to "the cloud". It'd be a pain to rebuild , but it'd be there. I've also started keeping an electronic log (shout out www.myflightbook.com ) which is SUPER handy when filling out an insurance application or 8710. Often these days I'll log it in MFB on the way home from the airport and update the paper log after 3-4 flights.
 
I use the automatic logging in Garmin Pilot, as it includes GPS tracks and engine monitor data. I will periodically download a copy for my own archive. I also choose to continue logging in a traditional logbook (which I have in a fancy leather sleeve) because for me there's a special pleasure in hand-logging time and occasionally flipping through the pages. Digital is absolutely amazing for flight totals and currency tracking, but lacks a certain something.
 
If you know the hours you flew, go ahead and log them if you want. Logbook entries, other than CFI(I) signed training, is really all on the honor system. Be sure to add a note as to why you're adding a block of time and expect questions every time you hand it to a new CFI(I) or DPE.

If you're going to start working on your Inst Rating, then you might look into ForeFlight or one of the other EFBs out there now days. ForeFlight has an electronic Logbook you can slowly start adding your old flights into if you want. I'd suggest downloading their Excel Template and doing it on the computer). As for your paper Logbook, I still get all my signatures in my Paper Logbook. As others have said, take a picture or I scan my paper Logbook to keep a digital record. The advantage of my ForeFlight Logbook it that I can search for pretty much anything I want.

Good luck on getting back into flying. My guess is you'll want to do a fair amount of VFR flying so you're not wasting your time with your Inst Instructor getting your basic motor skills back. Also learning the basics of FF or whatever EFB you choose to go with.
 
You could try to rebuild some of it by linking your and your friends & family’s memories to events, holidays, vacations, etc (“remember we flew to XYZ on my birthday”).

Your prior A&P might have tach-time records in archive.

Owner you sold it to might have tach time when he/she bought it.

Current owner will have airframe logs with tach time, at the very least.

Use all of that to figure out some rough number, including some factor for warmup, taxi, etc
 
M20K said:
Be sure to add a note as to why you're adding a block of time and expect questions every time you hand it to a new CFI(I) or DPE.
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“A block of time” is not a logbook entry that complies with 61.51. If you’re going to add a block back in, you’ll need supporting documentation per the link @midlifeflyer posted.
 
MauleSkinner said:
“A block of time” is not a logbook entry that complies with 61.51. If you’re going to add a block back in, you’ll need supporting documentation per the link @midlifeflyer posted.
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Yea... No. In the 5.127 note that it says "...Aeronautical training and experience that is used by airmen to meet the requirements for a certificate or rating, or for recent flight experience, must be documented in a reliable record..."

From what I read, @chippy has the endorsements for what he would be using towards his Inst Rating. It is just the other PIC time he want's to recover. There is no reason he cannot put in one line for his HONEST best guess of the time he legitimately logged in the plane he owned. (Maybe even drop the number by 10%) If he happens to use QuickBooks or Quicken, he could probably even pull up credit card fuel payments and get a legitimate estimate from that.
 
M20K said:
Yea... No. In the 5.127 note that it says "...Aeronautical training and experience that is used by airmen to meet the requirements for a certificate or rating, or for recent flight experience, must be documented in a reliable record..."

From what I read, @chippy has the endorsements for what he would be using towards his Inst Rating. It is just the other PIC time he want's to recover. There is no reason he cannot put in one line for his HONEST best guess of the time he legitimately logged in the plane he owned. (Maybe even drop the number by 10%) If he happens to use QuickBooks or Quicken, he could probably even pull up credit card fuel payments and get a legitimate estimate from that.
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He can log individual flights, but not a block as “this is what I’ve got.”. See 61.51. If he has fuel receipts, etc., that would fall under supporting documentation that might allow a block entry.
 
Jim K said:
As a couple have mentioned above, I take a photo of each completed page that is automatically backed up to "the cloud". It'd be a pain to rebuild , but it'd be there. I've also started keeping an electronic log (shout out www.myflightbook.com ) which is SUPER handy when filling out an insurance application or 8710. Often these days I'll log it in MFB on the way home from the airport and update the paper log after 3-4 flights.
Click to expand...
I stopped using my paper logbook for flights which did not require a third-party signature in 2013. I kept it for signatures until 2016 when I began to only use it only for CFIs who still felt uncomfortable with the digital logbook concept. Last paper entry of any kind was in July 2019.

You mention MyFlightBook. Funny story about that - my user number is lower than Eric's. I've been using it since 2006 when I ported the home-grown eLog I'd been using since the mid-1990s (originally in DOS).
 
A fellow very rusty pilot here....
I went up a few times with an instructor after about 18 years, and I was shocked at how well I handled the basics of "stick and rudder"...but also how rusty I felt doing other things such as preflight. I also felt like my reflexes were slow in the landing phase.
I'm instrument rated and I feel that I'd most likely stay VFR when I ever do get back into it.... at least for a long time. Seems to me that if I were going to set out with the goal today to get instrument proficient again, it would probably take me a ton of dual instruction...maybe nearly as much as when I originally worked on the rating! About the only advantage I have is that I would not have to pay current prices for the check-ride, or otherwise deal with the scheduling headaches and stress of a checkride either...


re. the logbook
I always burned a photocopy of my logbook when I filled a page... even back in the 1990's when I was most active. Later, I started keeping scanned copies digitally in addition to the paper photocopy.... But I'm just an uptight kind of guy when it comes to back-ups and documentation.... although I have relaxed a lot in my old age about all that.

Some years ago, I think it might have been during covid, I went through my logbook and built a spreadsheet. Not so much as a back-up, but to be able to see the data. It was a fun project reminiscing. It proved to be constructive too. I found some errors along the way. Then I used the data to build some other spreadsheets listing all the aircraft I've flown for example.... which prompted research to get things like serial numbers, year models, horsepower, etc... It gives me a more complete picture... I broke out all sorts of different data points, such as time in types.... how much time in C-172N and how much in C-172P, not just how much time in C-172's
Then I broke out a spreadsheet of all the airports I've operated out of...which took me on a rat trail finding closed airports, the current identifiers for airports that have been renamed, etc. (for example W45 is now KLUA)

At some point I learned about myflightboook here on this forum. I was able to use the spreadsheet data to fill that in...which is basically what I created in spreadsheet form, but better in many ways! It offers some very interesting tools

Still I'm glad that I did the spreadsheet. Just now typing this post, I thought I wondered how many hours it took me to get my instrument rating. Well that's a little complicated so instead, how many hours did I have at my private checkride and how many more did I have at my instrument checkride?....so I added a column and a minute later I knew that I had 64.8 total hours going into my PPL ride and 160.5 going into my instrument ride. I know it wasn't close to 95.7 hours of instruction or practice actually for instrument ride, but I know it was 95.7 hours of experience that brought me to that level of competence.
 
If you just stopped logging time, even though you were still flying, how could you have proved your 3 takeoffs and landings inn the previous 90 days to carry passengers? Good thing there was not an incident that required that proof. Normally renewal of insurance policies would ask for time in the previous year, or current time to date... did that ever get updated?

If you just flew and never logged the time... time not logged is time lost.
 
Agree 100% to scan as a PDF or take a picture. I have Adobe Acrobat, so I can add additional PDF pages to my log book back up providing me with one file with all of my flights.

In addition to that, if you want to keep it very simple you can also type your hours into an Excel spreadsheet. You can easily add hours, sort by aircraft type, hood time, approaches flown, etc.
 
M20K said:
Yea... No. In the 5.127 note that it says "...Aeronautical training and experience that is used by airmen to meet the requirements for a certificate or rating, or for recent flight experience, must be documented in a reliable record..."
Click to expand...
Yes, but the guidance in 5-127 is subject to the logbook regulation in terms of how documented in the ordinary course of events. But a logbook is also a ledger. So I can see making block entries for recaptured time when that’s all you have. Easy example is a single entry for the totals you got from your last 8710. @455 Bravo Uniform gave some other examples that might work for that, like the recorded times between annuals if one was sole user of the aircraft,
 
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