Do you use a digital logbook application?

[dsffdssdf]

Just curious...

If not, why? Is it because you don't think it's worth the hassle? Is it because you don't trust computers? Have you looked into digital logbook products before and found them all to be too crappy and/or not worth the money?

full disclosure: I'm the CEO of an aviation software company (not gonna say which one, I'm not here to advertise). I've noticed that just about the majority of pilots I come across these days are still using paper logbooks. It seems perplexing to me that this is still the case in freaking 2012.

I'm trying to get a grasp on which problems are still unresolved with the way pilots expect software to store their flight information.

 

[John221us]

I use Logbook Pro. It is convenient, because I can log with my iPhone or iPad. It is a PITA, because there is no digital way to get endorsements, so I still need paper. I print it out and put the pages in a binder. This is also a PITA, due to formatting (two page format) and hole punching (non standard 6 hole punch, or you can buy their special paper).

 

[Nadir]

I'm trying to get a grasp on which problems are still unresolved with the way pilots expect software to store their flight information.

Instructor signoffs, signatures, and stickers are really hard to use with a digital logbook.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Been using one since the DOS days. At this point I consider it my primary although I continue lo enter minimal information (end endorsements) in my paper log. I still see unresolved issues regarding what is "acceptable to the Administrator" with respect to digital logs.

 

[dell30rb]

I use digital, myflightbook.com as primary. I keep my paper one around just for endorsements/training. Instructors like signing things and writing their number on it

If there was a convienent way for an online logbook to do instructor signatures, i'd be all over that.

 

[denverpilot]

Both. LogTen Pro for quick convenience entries at the plane via iPad or iPhone and paper because there's far too much gray area still. Endorsements are now available in LogTen but never any guarantee any particular person will accept them.

 

[SCCutler]

Not yet, but about to start up, I think. I believe I will better maintain the log if I can do so in near real time on whatever iThing I have handy. Online logbook I intend to use has readily-available comma-separated downloads for backup, very important.

 

[X3 Skier]

If there was a convienent way for an online logbook to do instructor signatures, i'd be all over that.

I suppose it could be like the Wings Program where you request credit, the FAA sends an email to the CFI, he/she verifies and you get the credit.

The logbook site could work the same way. You do the work, request a boiler plate endorsement paragraph for tail wheel for example, the logbook sends an email to your CFI, he/she sends back yea verily, and they add the name and number of the CFI.

If it worked that way, paper could vanish (except I would keep the paper anyway in case the site went out of business). :wink2:

Might take an official FAA approval of the process in which case, I abandon hope.

Cheers

 

[Bob Noel]

Just curious...

If not, why? .

Because I don't need one.

There is zero value to me for a digital logbook. I'm perfectly capable of writing on a piece of paper. And 40 years from now, my logbook will still be legible. I won't have to find a 40 year-old computer to read my log.

 

[John221us]

I do backup the electronic logbook. It is small file, so I just email to myself and keep it in a folder. The endorsement thing is the biggest issue. Once that is solved, I won't need paper. I like that electronic reduces mistakes and does the math for me.

 

[DouglasBader]

I keep a paper logbook, but also use LogbookPro. I'm not home much, so the electronic logbook gives me a place to record currency until I can get home and transfer it to paper.

I've never been able to push past the tediousness of transferring all the old logbooks to computer. One day, maybe. For now, paper continues to work as it always has.

 

[JeffDG]

Instructor signoffs, signatures, and stickers are really hard to use with a digital logbook.

Under federal law, they're actually incredibly easy.

15 USC 7001:

(a) IN GENERAL.—Notwithstanding any statute, regulation, or
other rule of law (other than this title and title II), with respect
to any transaction in or affecting interstate or foreign commerce—
(1) a signature, contract, or other record relating to such
transaction may not be denied legal effect, validity, or enforceability solely because it is in electronic form

and
15 USC 7006:

(5) ELECTRONIC SIGNATURE.—The term ‘‘electronic signature’’ means an electronic sound, symbol, or process, attached
to or logically associated with a contract or other record and
executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the
record.

In my (non-lawyer) opinion, these two provisions conspire to make an e-mail from the CFI like this:

I certify that (First name, MI, Last name), (pilot certificate) (certificate number) has satisfactorily completed the instrument proficiency check of §61.57(d) in a (list make and model of aircraft) on (date). S/S [date] //J.J. Jones// 987654321 CFI Exp. 12-31-00

This would be a valid IPC endorsement. It is an electronic record, logically associated with a record, executed by a person (CFI) with the intent to sign the record.

 

[DouglasBader]

Title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations covers Commerce and Foreign Trade.

 

[poadeleted20]

Instructor signoffs, signatures, and stickers are really hard to use with a digital logbook.

Ditto, including endorsements, and that makes all the e-logbooks currently available non-starters for me, both as a user and as an instructor.

 

[TMetzinger]

There's similar language elsewhere though.

I've been involved both as a Fed and a contractor in Electronic/Digital Signatures for a couple decades now. And the bottom line is that Agencies must allow electronic/digital signatures when folks do business with those agencies electronically. BUT each agency gets to specify what standards apply to what transactions. That's one of the things "...in a manner acceptable to the Administrator" means.

Example. The IRS lets you sign your tax return when you e-file with very little security and no face-to-face validation of ID. But the DEA requires a public-key based Digital Signature for executing certain transactions in controlled substances, and to be issued your certificate requires a face-to-face identity check with a Registration Authority. GSA requires similar rigor for contracts of certain value.

Back to the OP, I use Logbook Pro, and periodically copy it off to paper, since I still get endorsements and ratings and such. But if I go to an interview or checkride, I take the nicely formatted print version from Logbook Pro, and I keep my paper log in reserve in case someone wants to actually see the handwritten pressurization endorsement, rather than look at the entry in the history section that says when I got it and who gave it to me. In the last six times, only one person even asked if I had the original and when I said "yes, right here", he said "That's ok, never mind".

 

[DouglasBader]

That may be fine for transactions, but I've never heard it expressed as acceptable by the FAA for logbooks. Contracts are commerce, and applicable to 15 CFR. 14 CFR 61, however, is not.

 

[Mafoo]

I am in training, and as anyone in training, I am obsessed and have looked at all the options, and asked people there opinion.

My instructor (who is a 26 year old with 6,000 hours logged) has told me to just stick with the paper one for now, because it's the only form guaranteed to be accepted by the FAA.

He said he loves electronic ones as a second log, but to not discard paper form, until you have whatever the max license you ever plan to get.

He uses an excel template, and never migrated to an app because he never found a reason to.

 

[Anymouse]

I currently use LogTen Pro. Been using an electronic logbook since I had about 500 hours or so.

The most common reason I hear from folks that don't use it is that they don't want to spend the time to enter all their previous hours. If an inexpensive service were provided to enter past time, you might be able to drum up some more business.

 

[BillTIZ]

I keep the paper logbook, use LogBook Pro for "back up". It makes the every two year 8710 CFI renewal easier to tabulate hours for the form.

Don't trust just electronic. Just had a young pilot loose about 50hrs because a computer crunched with no backup file. She needs 100hrs PIC to get into the Pawnee, and can't prove she has the time.

 

[denverpilot]

I currently use LogTen Pro. Been using an electronic logbook since I had about 500 hours or so.

The most common reason I hear from folks that don't use it is that they don't want to spend the time to enter all their previous hours. If an inexpensive service were provided to enter past time, you might be able to drum up some more business.

Logbook Pro used to have such a service. The thing was, you had to ship away your logbooks to them or make very good copies their staff could work from.

Obviously the shipping was a non-starter. They aren't going anywhere.

The copies thing was okay if you had access to a scanner that'd do a page that big and a lot of time on your hands. Nowadays, photos and stitching could handle it easily, but then you still had to pay for it. I don't recall it being inexpensive.

Another issue for me was that my logs are old enough that everyone who signed them, signed with their SSN, which used to be your airman certificate number.

I didn't really want to ship copies off to someone working minimum wage transcribing the logbooks who knows where and in what business conditions (Supervised? Working at home in spare time in a basement? Paid well enough not to be tempted by identity theft of a bunch of pilots?)... So I never gave it more than about a day's worth of thought.

When I went digital I spent days entering data. A older pro pilot wouldn't ever be able to do it all.

 

[NoHeat]

I don't even know where to look for a digital logbook, and I don't care.

Basically, I don't want my data to get lost. Which is what will happen if it goes digital.

I've got my dad's logbook from when he learned to fly in the 60's. It is still just as readable today as it was then. If I put mine into digital format, it will certainly not be readable fifty years from now, and probably not 15 years from now. It will just get lost when I can no longer access the right kind of disk or operating system or website or whatever. Paper is archival, ones and zeroes are not.

 

[Threefingeredjack]

I have a Quattro Pro spreadsheet I built that works to keep me appraised of currency and BFR/Medical dates. But paper is my main data bank.

 

[John221us]

I don't even know where to look for a digital logbook, and I don't care.

Basically, I don't want my data to get lost. Which is what will happen if it goes digital.

I've got my dad's logbook from when he learned to fly in the 60's. It is still just as readable today as it was then. If I put mine into digital format, it will certainly not be readable fifty years from now, and probably not 15 years from now. It will just get lost when I can no longer access the right kind of disk or operating system or website or whatever. Paper is archival, ones and zeroes are not.

I am not going to try to convert you, but it is a good thing that your vision of electronic data's permanence has no basis in reality. The world would be in for a lot of hurt; financial records, medical records (including FAA medical), business accounting, etc.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

I've heard of more than one story of lost paper logbooks. Same goes for lost/deleted logs stored on hard drives.

Paper is good for all the reasons mentioned above, but a backup in the cloud is not a bad idea. At all.

Ask anyone who has ever needed to ensure that whatever record they had in their hands would not get lost/stolen/destroyed either on accident or on purpose. If you really need it, maintain it in at least two separate locations, using at least two different technologies.

 

[weilke]

The world would be in for a lot of hurt; financial records, medical records (including FAA medical), business accounting, etc.

Have you recently tried to find a reader for RWX MODs (such as you would find on a micro-VAX) ? Do you still have a reader for 8in or 5 1/4 floppy discs ?

Media and data format obsolecence is real. We ARE in a world of hurt already.

 

[John221us]

Have you recently tried to find a reader for RWX MODs (such as you would find on a micro-VAX) ? Do you still have a reader for 8in or 5 1/4 floppy discs ?

Media and data format obsolecence is real. We ARE in a world of hurt already.

Any individual media or proprietary format certainly has as much risk of data loss as an individual paper log book (and I have known multiple people who have lost their paper logbook or had it stolen out of their car). I have made a living out of protecting corporate data. I assure you it is much easier to protect and replicate in different formats than anything on paper. There is a reason that most businesses are moving away from paper. I can recall, many years ago, being called in by a law firm. The sprinklers had gone off in the file room (and the server room) due to an earthquake. Even the partners of the law firm were on the floor with hair driers trying to save the paper records. The server.... We had backups.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

Have you recently tried to find a reader for RWX MODs (such as you would find on a micro-VAX) ? Do you still have a reader for 8in or 5 1/4 floppy discs ?

Media and data format obsolecence is real. We ARE in a world of hurt already.

If you are relying on any backup medium that is subject to having the random household pet gnaw it into saliva-coated pulp, or the random household fire turning it in to pure carbon, you have failed. Likewise if you rely on a proprietary format as a backup method, you have also failed.

 

[weilke]

If you are relying on any backup medium that is subject to having the random household pet gnaw it into saliva-coated pulp, or the random household fire turning it in to pure carbon, you have failed. Likewise if you rely on a proprietary format as a backup method, you have also failed.

Those were not backup media, this was simply how data was stored before hard-drives became so cheap that you could keep everything online. If one has to go back and use those data for research purposes, it does require the capability to read them (also includes reel-reel magnetic tape and the various streaming cartridges in use over the decades).

 

[Rigged4Flight]

Those were not backup media, this was simply how data was stored before hard-drives became so cheap that you could keep everything online. If one has to go back and use those data for research purposes, it does require the capability to read them (also includes reel-reel magnetic tape and the various streaming cartridges in use over the decades).

I understand what you're saying. And I understand that converting years worth of data from any legacy form is difficult, whether it is currently paper or some outdated digital format or whatever. Sometimes it may not even be possible.

But today, there is no reason for anyone to ever place logbook backups on anything that won't be easily compatible with almost any conceivable future system. Especially data so easily parsed as a log book. To do so will almost guarantee that you will probably have to spend much more time hand jamming a conversion to a later format.

 

[NineThreeKilo]

I use a excel sheet I made, uploaded to Google docs.

I can add flights from my iPhone, desktop, laptop, or public computer, it's centrally stored on Google's servers, I download a back-up copy to my computer every 2 weeks. I also have a formula in the sheets that calculates my pay, thus my logbook is broken down in a new sheet for each pay period, which is printed and handed to payroll every 2wks.

If I need to add anything that is hand written or is a signature (like a BFR), I have it written on a piece of paper, scan it and add it to the cell in my excel sheet on google docs, bada bing!


I've run it through a few DPEs and FSDOs now and haven't had an issue.

The big plus for me is I can just whip out my iPhone, where I am already logged in to Google docs (SSL encrypted connection), add my flights after each day, even if my phone were to blow up everything is saved, even if Google were to go out of business, I have a backup copy on my desktop and laptop.

I also have my old paper logbook scanned and uploaded into my excel/google logbook.


This is the best logbook solution I have found (and I log about 60-70hrs every 2wks), it's also free.

 

[weilke]

I understand what you're saying. And I understand that converting years worth of data from any legacy form is difficult, whether it is currently paper or some outdated digital format or whatever. Sometimes it may not even be possible.

But today, there is no reason for anyone to ever place logbook backups on anything that won't be easily compatible with almost any conceivable future system. Especially data so easily parsed as a log book. To do so will almost guarantee that you will probably have to spend much more time hand jamming a conversion to a later format.

One of my instructors brought by his dads logs from the 1940s. You go through those books, you can trace history. You think 70 years from now, anyone will be able or willing to decipher something designed for something as obsolete as mac-os ?

The catch with digital archiving is that unless you actively continue to copy it over in a error-free fashion into whatever the format of the day is, you will eventually loose it. For most information, that doesn't matter, realistically nobody needs company or accounting data from 25 years ago.

 

[denverpilot]

I use a excel sheet I made, uploaded to Google docs.

As a mid-life (well hopefully anyway!) sysadmin who thinks Google probably has plenty of money and systems for redundancy and backup, I would still advise downloading a copy of that Google Doc and keeping it elsewhere.

Google, like all companies, is one good Accounting scandal away from turning off the server farm, and walking away.

They're probably much further from it than most tech companies, but I've seen law enforcement walk in the door, confiscate or shut down all the gear to preserve evidence, and never did the server farm come back to life. If that drive array, mirrored across three sites, held "your" only copy of your data. It's gone.

The "cloud" isn't one company. If you don't want local copies, at least put a copy on some other "cloud" service.

Fiber cuts and backhoe fade also happen. And sometimes the redundant route doesn't work. Again, Google may be relatively immune, but you don't know. Maybe their only second copy of your data was offline during maintenance when the primary system decides to take a dump. Or maybe there's a bug that will corrupt the data slowly over time in a way they and you don't notice until it has migrated to every one of their backup servers and onto their long-term backup media.

"Single-sourced" is the term sysadmins use for data continuity reports when all the data is stored off-site with a single vendor. No matter how big they seem to be today, they might be gone tomorrow.

Even the largest and best maintained computer systems experience downtime or can be written out of existence with the stroke of a Judge's pen. Google will never be "too big to fail".

Keep your own backups and make sure they work of your most important digital data. The cloud is a bit of a Marketing myth. There's real servers behind that facade and humans who will screw up. Not if. When. Good data protection procedures can protect against one mistake.

Anyone who's been a sysadmin long enough has seen at least one day in their career where multiple people made multiple mistakes in just the right way, to cause data loss.

We truly are the weakest link.

 

[Rigged4Flight]

One of my instructors brought by his dads logs from the 1940s. You go through those books, you can trace history. You think 70 years from now, anyone will be able or willing to decipher something designed for something as obsolete as mac-os ?

That IMO would be the coolest thing about keeping the hard copy logbook, with the oil smear from the first time you preflighted without an oil rag, or the coffee cup stain from the night you were stuck waiting for weather to clear (all during your student pilot hours, of course). Nothing beats the massive memory flashback that happens when you open a hand-written piece of your history and relive those moments again.

But regarding data: Any CSV file made on any OS at any time since the dawn of DOS can be imported in to any database or spreadsheet. I can't see any time in our foreseeable future where that will not be a fact.

The key is to copy the data, not the proprietary format of whatever you have been using to manipulate or view the data with.

The catch with digital archiving is that unless you actively continue to copy it over in a error-free fashion into whatever the format of the day is, you will eventually loose it. For most information, that doesn't matter, realistically nobody needs company or accounting data from 25 years ago.

True. But for something like a CSV file, where you are just copying the text in a character-delimited file, the effort would be minimal. In times past, that involved copying your stuff from one floppy format to another floppy format, which required that you have both types of drives on the same computer. Those days are long past. From here on out, all of the storage you could ever want will be accessed by whatever form of network interface is in effect at the time. As Nate said, even the cloud is made up of individual servers, having individual hard drives and components that will fail, but the likelihood of your data being lost if backed up to a well maintained cloud storage service is much, much less than the likelihood of your personal hard drive going south along with all of the data that was on it.

I at one time had a whole box of 5.25" single-side formatted disks full of personal files and stuff. When I started converting them over to the 3.5" disks it was a pain in the ass, and some of the data on the older disks was too corrupted to copy. So I know what you're talking about, and I definitely feel your pain. But those days are behind us. Embrace the future, my friend.

 

[midlifeflyer]

Title 15 of the Code of Federal Regulations covers Commerce and Foreign Trade.

15 USC is Title 15 of the US COde - federal statute, not regulation. It applies to everything. But the provision he's missing in his non-legal interpretation is:

15 usc 7004(a) Filing and access requirements
Subject to subsection (c)(2) of this section, nothing in this subchapter limits or supersedes any requirement by a Federal regulatory agency, self-regulatory organization, or State regulatory agency that records be filed with such agency or organization in accordance with specified standards or formats.

That's where "in a manner acceptable to the Administrator" may come in.

 

[DouglasBader]

It applies to commerce and trade, hence the title of it's application.

 

[NoHeat]

it is a good thing that your vision of electronic data's permanence has no basis in reality.

Your reality is different from mine. In the last 30 years, my reality is losing most of my electronic data, after being swept over by generation after generation of obsolescence. If I wanted to devote my life to moving data from one obsolete medium or forum to another, and constantly making backups to other forms of media, and meticulously tracking all of that effort, then maybe not. But my reality is that my life is centered on other things.

A paper book can just sit there for decades, without any attention whatever, and it will still be good. An occasional photocopy or scanning is all the attention it needs, in case it is misplaced, so that it can then be restored once again to the best archival medium of all: paper.

Good luck with your electronic data. And be sure to ask your grandkids to check with mine 50 years from now, to compare the logbooks.

 

[GMascelli]

I use digital, myflightbook.com as primary. I keep my paper one around just for endorsements/training. Instructors like signing things and writing their number on it

If there was a convienent way for an online logbook to do instructor signatures, i'd be all over that.

+1 I keep my paper one for endorsements.

 

[silver-eagle]

I use a paper logbook with and excel spreadsheet as backup. As a second backup, I photocopy each page and store them in different places. I never thought about using an electronic flight log because I have books, would still have the books, and don't care to address the endorsements.
Let someone else be first.

 

[FlyingDeacon]

I do use a digital logbook but it's an excel spreadsheet I created myself. Has multiple pages with graphs showing currency, landings, night, day, etc. Also has a graph showing total time in different aircraft.

 

[PuertoRicoFlyer]

I use an Excel spreadsheet. Then every 10-20 flights I make a print out and staple it to my "logbook". Keeps the math correct and easy for any hand written endorsement.