Can MyFlightBook generate "canned" comments?

[RussR]

Just wondering if there's a way to do this in MyFlightBook, which I have been using for years and think is a great app/website/etc.

As a CFI, I fly largely with aircraft owners seeking new ratings or recurrency training. Since they own the airplane, they are always the one I am instructing in it.

When I log the flight in my logbook (paper and myflightbook), all I put in the comments block is their name. So, any flight with N12345 as the tailnumber is going to have the comment "Jim Jones", and N67890 is always going to have "Bob Smith".

I know that MFB has a "student" property. Is there a way to tie that into the tailnumber of the aircraft so that it would autopopulate for those tailnumbers I have set up to do it? (With the obvious ability to manually change the comment block if necessary.)

If there's not, then consider it just a small feature request (@EricBe), but it would be nice. After all, who wants to have to actually remember students' names?

 

[OverTQ]

That's not a current feature, but what you can do is duplicate another flight and then just change the information that's different (date, landings, routes, times).

 

[AggieMike88]

@EricBe is all about listening to suggestions to make MFB better. Send him an email with the request.

But for now, you can always use Notes to save some of your canned comments, then copy/paste. Or as OverTQ suggested, duplicate and edit.

 

[EricBe]

Interesting features suggestion, but there might be an alternative way to do this, if you use the signing feature: when you sign a student's flight on MyFlightbook, there is a checkbox you can tick that copies the flight to your logbook*. At that point, I obviously know the student's name (from their profile) so it would be pretty straightforward to append their name to the flight remarks at that time.

The upside to this model is that it's completely automatic, there's no potentially confusing or obtuse user-interface to set up, and it's not quite so brittle as "all flights in Nxyz are instruction flights with Joe Smith" (and it's trivially easy to do - in fact, I might go into the code and do it now regardless); the downside is that it would require that your student use MyFlightbook and that you sign their flights after given instruction flight.

Do you think that would work for you?

--Eric

*It obviously modifies the flight for you too. Key changes it makes today: (a) swaps CFI and Dual, (b) swaps "Ground Instruction Received" and "Ground Instruction Given", (c) sets the PIC time to MAX(PIC, Total Flight Time).

 

[midlifeflyer]

*It obviously modifies the flight for you too. Key changes it makes today: (a) swaps CFI and Dual, (b) swaps "Ground Instruction Received" and "Ground Instruction Given", (c) sets the PIC time to MAX(PIC, Total Flight Time).

Um... MAX?

 

[EricBe]

Um... MAX?

OK, now I gotta go back and remember why I did that (this is what happens when I read the code and reply to the thread - I just basically transcribe it and assume I had a good reason for writing the code the way I did. )

If it's a primary student, the PIC for the student's flight will be 0, so the entire amount of time of the flight will be CFI time. I remember that part of it.

What I'm not remembering is why bother with the "MAX". But mathematically, it's moot: PIC should always be less-than-or-equal-to total time of flight, so MAX(PIC, Total Flight Time) should simply be equal to Total Flight Time. So it's sort of a no-op ("no operation" in software speak; the "MAX" function isn't really doing anything useful).

What I should probably do is one of these - what do people think?
a) Ascribe total time to PIC (i.e., assume that if you're signing the flight, you were instructor for it; essentially just remove the irrelevant "MAX" function. Often - but not always - accurate
b) Ascribe the CFI time to PIC, on the assumption that you were only PIC while providing instruction
c) Ascribe Total Time minus PIC time to you, on the assumption that you were the PIC for all of the time that the student wasn't. (I'm not wild about this option because you can instruct an already-licensed pilot).

Note, of course, that you can always edit the flight afterwards; the signed flight is in the student's logbook, yours is not signed.

 

[EricBe]

Oh, by the way: the "Student: xxx" added to the comment when signing a flight is now live on the website. It was a trivial feature to add.

 

[RussR]

Interesting features suggestion, but there might be an alternative way to do this, if you use the signing feature: when you sign a student's flight on MyFlightbook, there is a checkbox you can tick that copies the flight to your logbook*. At that point, I obviously know the student's name (from their profile) so it would be pretty straightforward to append their name to the flight remarks at that time.

That would work to a degree, but you're right, it would only be if the student was using MFB as well - which, while a few of mine over the years have used MFB, there are so many other options that there are more people not using MFB than those that are, so it's only a partial solution. Currently, none of my students are, and although I mention MFB, some are perfectly happy with the other options.

I was thinking also that the option to tie comments to tailnumbers would be useful for other purposes as well. For example, I have a friend who is an aerial mapping pilot. Every time he flies N12345, his comment says "aerial mapping". Same could be true of a cropduster, pipeline patrol, banner tow, glider tow, or many other pilots that fly "repetitive" type flights.

And, thanks for the quick response!