Physical Logbook vs. Digital?

David Wilcox

David Wilcox

Filing Flight Plan
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Lombard, IL
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Dave Wilcox
What do you prefer: the standard physical logbook or a digital version? Do you have a recommended digital one? Pros and cons of each? (Just started training, so I'm interested in your thoughts.)
 
i keep both and in addition i have photocopies of each page of my logbook in our safety deposit box. been doing this ever since my CFI lost his logbook.
 
Paper has the advantages of paper; digital of digital. Easy math; multiple copies to prevent loss. That kind of preference is really what is comes down to. Except for one thing - your instructor. Ultimately, since it is your instructor who will need to sign your logbook for training given (an FAA requirement), it is something I would be discussing with him or her. He or she probably also knows the preferences of whatever examiner you may ultimately do your checkride with. It's changing but digital logbooks are just new enough that there are still those who resist, even though it's futile.

Don't discount the idea of both at the beginning. One alternative is to get an inexpensive paper logbook and run them in tandem, anticipating that at some point you will go full digital. FWIW, I'll give you a little personal history on that. It starts in the Stone Age, so its relevance is up to you.

I began flight training in 1990. Obviously all paper. But I was still using DOS (are you old enough to remember?) when I wrote a simple digital logbook around 1992 or 1993. It went through some iterations until early 2007 when I stopped using it in favor of MyFlightBook, which I have happily used ever since. You will see its developer posted in that other thread and he might post here. Very responsive.

What happened to paper? Well, for me it was in stages (hence the ide of runing them in tandem), mostly having to do with my perception of FAA and third party acceptance. I continued to run both paper and plastic until mid-2013 when I gave up paper except for flights and endorsements requiring a CFI signature. That changed in 2018. I still keep my paper log but it is only for those instructors who prefer to sign paper.
 
Digital, hands down, if you like paper, you can print it out. Digital is great for checking currency requirements and reports. I use Foreflight.
 
A few years ago I started keeping a digital logbook in parallel with the paper logbooks I've been keeping since 1976. After a year or so I stopped bothering with the digital, paper is all I need... and will be more enjoyable to browse through and reminisce when I'm too old to fly.
 
I do both for now but do like the digital. Can take snapshots of reports and save for records


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My heirs will stumble upon my logbook while cleaning out my study, and spend a melancholy afternoon looking through it, smiling when they see their own names. They’d probably never find it on the computer. If they did, it wouldn’t have the same effect.

So, I’m keeping a paper log in order to promote family guilt!
 
Dana said:
A few years ago I started keeping a digital logbook in parallel with the paper logbooks I've been keeping since 1976. After a year or so I stopped bothering with the digital, paper is all I need... and will be more enjoyable to browse through and reminisce when I'm too old to fly.
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Just yesterday I was thinking about a flight some years ago. I knew which airplane it was and where we went, but I couldn't remember the date or even the year. Took about 10 seconds to find the flight in my digital logbook.

I'm pretty media-neutral. No great preference for one over the other. I like print magazines better than digital but prefer books on Kindle or tablet. I'll print good photographs to blow them up but otherwise it takes a few years for me to go through a ream of paper.
 
Digital. It makes filling out stupid ass insurance forms every year way easier, and it made filling out job applications way easier back when I was on the hunt. Backed up to the cloud so you don't have to worry about losing everything.
 
Groundpounder said:
Digital. It makes filling out stupid ass insurance forms every year way easier, and it made filling out job applications way easier back when I was on the hunt.
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Between various clients and job applications, I find myself filling out such forms about once a month. And of course they all want the time broken down differently. Ugh. I have to wonder, before digital logbooks, how much of these times were a complete fabrication because the totals would be virtually impossible to obtain with a paper logbook. Or at least extremely tedious.

But I do still keep a paper logbook too, for reasons I can really only attribute to "inertia". As an active CFI, I have pages and pages of entries where the only comment is the client's name. Not exactly sentimental fodder.
 
Both. But one thing I've noticed transferring all my time to an electronic logbook is adding wrong in the physical one. :D
 
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