Preferred logbook?

I use Zululog. Went digital in 2015 and haven't made a paper logbook entry since (nor will I ever again.)
 
Ryan F. said:
I use Zululog. Went digital in 2015 and haven't made a paper logbook entry since (nor will I ever again.)
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Maybe for the pro guys, but for me, there's something soothing about grabbing a pen and logging the flight.
 
Bill said:
Maybe for the pro guys, but for me, there's something soothing about grabbing a pen and logging the flight.
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No reason you can't do both! I keep both in parallel.

EDIT: Heh - Tarheelpilot beat me to it!
 
Tspin said:
Overall, I liked MyFlightbook. My issue is the nature of the shared database for airports and airplanes. Mostly related to the airports. I have a lot of flights in the FL area from back in the late 80's and early 90's. Several airports have changed identifiers since then. I like to keep the old identifier in the logbook for old times sake. For a while this wasn't an issue as the identifiers were linked in the database, but that changed last year (I think). With no input from me, all of a sudden the information in my logbook entries was changed. While my main issue is with the airports, the same can occur with aircraft as well. To me this made me question the integrity of my information and so I do not use MyFlightbook any longer. It's a shame because I enjoyed the features, ease of use (except for printing), on-line based nature, etc. Other's I'm sure will disagree, but this is my opinion.
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This can indeed happen with aircraft but it doesn't really impact the integrity of the information. The vast majority of the time, the change is "insignificant" (e.g., changing a C-172 N to a C-172 P, for example) and in the direction of greater accuracy. I review 100% of edits that can impact other pilots and step in to resolve any issue. E.g., if N12345 gets reassigned by the FAA from a C-172 to a B-737, then I can make sure that both versions exist side-by-side in the database, with each pilot having the correct version (or both!) in their logbook.

Airports are a bit more difficult - It's relatively rare, but it does happen. I do indeed try to keep old airport IDs around as long as I can, but if they get re-used, I don't have a way to have two geotags for the same code. But you don't need to change your logbook entry, it just may map in the wrong (new) place.
 
My flightbook dot com with a paper back up in a professional pilot log book.
 
I used the little Jeppesen logbook then the professional ones. If I had to do it all over again, I’d go digital ASAP. It just makes everything cleaner and neater.
 
EricBe said:
Airports are a bit more difficult - It's relatively rare, but it does happen. I do indeed try to keep old airport IDs around as long as I can, but if they get re-used, I don't have a way to have two geotags for the same code. But you don't need to change your logbook entry, it just may map in the wrong (new) place.
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My issue with the airport identifiers is that you did go in and change identifiers for multiple airports, removing the old identifier and changing it to the new identifier. For example, KPCM used to be X17, which is how I had it logged until you changed all the entries to KPCM. I just checked your airport database and X17 doesn’t exist anymore.

To me, any ability to change / edit data that I have logged makes all the data now suspect.
 
Tspin said:
My issue with the airport identifiers is that you did go in and change identifiers for multiple airports, removing the old identifier and changing it to the new identifier. For example, KPCM used to be X17, which is how I had it logged until you changed all the entries to KPCM. I just checked your airport database and X17 doesn’t exist anymore.
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Huh, there are a few things that confuse me about what you say above because they don't comport to how things have ever worked in MyFlightbook:
  • I don't modify flight entries. If you had X17 in you route-of-flight, then I don't change it to KPCM - your flight still says X17. Whatever I do in the airport database doesn't impact your flights, and I don't ever have cause to go edit flights.
  • I don't delete codes either. The dataset of airports grows monotonically. If an airport codes change, I add a new one with the new code. So if X17 became KPCM, then I'd go from having one entry that is "X17", to having two entries - "X17" and "KPCM", with the same coordinates and (presumably) the same name. Sometimes a new code overrides a prior assignment - e.g., if XYZ was an FAA code for an airport that closed long ago and they assign XYZ to a new airport, then I'll update the "XYZ" entry to be the new airport. But I never take KOLD and simply change it to KNEW, leaving the database without a KOLD.
  • Even though airports support crowd-sourcing, users can only delete entries that they've created. So it's possible that someone else created X17 and then deleted it? Perhaps, but of the more than 58,000 airports in the system at the moment, fewer than 5% are user created - the rest are marked as "internal", meaning that there is no tool for anybody to delete them (myself included).
All of my airport data importing tools and the tools for users to create their own airports adhere to the model above.

There are really only 3 kinds of edits I ever make to an existing airport, and deletion is not one of them: (a) overwriting if it is formally re-assigned (as above), (b) minor adjustments to latitude/longitude or name (e.g., so that KXYZ and XYZ are at the same location rather than a few feet apart from each other), or (c) designating one of multiple co-located codes as "preferred." E.g., if you are at KPCM and press "Nearest", it should pick "KPCM" over "PCM" or "X17". But if you manually entered "PCM" or "X17", it would still map correctly.

The only downside to X17 not being in the database, of course, is that it doesn't map that flight correctly, which is no worse than most logbooks anyhow. But hey - if it can be mapped, it should. You can add X17 to the database (Airports->Edit Airports) and then it will map. Alas, if X17 gets reassigned by the FAA, then it will map to the new location, not where you flew, but that too is no different than...any other airport-mapping capable system like Foreflight out there.
 
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Tspin said:
To me, any ability to change / edit data that I have logged makes all the data now suspect.
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BTW, I think this is worthy of a response that's more in-depth than is appropriate for in-line here, because I think there's actually a surprising amount to unpack. I'm going to do a blog post on it and post a link to that here.
 
Looking at myflightbook. Is there any place for complex, HP, instrument, actual, simulated, etc? I don't see it in the phone app.
 
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BrianNC said:
Looking at myflightbook. Is there any place for complex, HP, instrument, actual, simulated, etc? I don't see it in the phone app.
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Complex/HP (and tailwheel, turbine, multi-engine, etc.) are not attributes of a flight, so there's no need to log them. They're attributes of the model of aircraft. So if you log an hour in N12345 and N12345 is a Beech Bonanza, then it's automatically an hour of complex/HP time. If N12345 is a Piper Cub, then it's tailwheel. And so forth.

Actual and Simulated are on the form where you enter your flight, with the headings "IMC" (for actual) and "Sim. IMC" (for simulated).
 
EricBe said:
Complex/HP (and tailwheel, turbine, multi-engine, etc.) are not attributes of a flight, so there's no need to log them. They're attributes of the model of aircraft. So if you log an hour in N12345 and N12345 is a Beech Bonanza, then it's automatically an hour of complex/HP time. If N12345 is a Piper Cub, then it's tailwheel. And so forth.

Actual and Simulated are on the form where you enter your flight, with the headings "IMC" (for actual) and "Sim. IMC" (for simulated).
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Ah thanks! So when it comes time to sort, how would you sort for say complex time?
 
So here is something interesting. I am transferring my physical logbook to myflightbook. I took my first flight in February of '79. I put it in as a C152. But myflightbook changed it to a 152 Aerobat, and sent me an email saying that N number had previously been identified by others as an Aerobat, so I changed it. No problem, but funny a plane I flew in 1979 is identified by others. I guess it's still flying.
 
BrianNC said:
So here is something interesting. I am transferring my physical logbook to myflightbook. I took my first flight in February of '79. I put it in as a C152. But myflightbook changed it to a 152 Aerobat, and sent me an email saying that N number had previously been identified by others as an Aerobat, so I changed it. No problem, but funny a plane I flew in 1979 is identified by others. I guess it's still flying.
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Funny ... I had a couple I had wrong too that MFB “found” due to the crowdsourcing. I checked each carefully for FAA changes and they hadn’t changed since I flew em. I just wrote down the wrong thing eons ago.

So the aircraft database can cut both ways but for me it fixed a couple.

One was dumb, like a Skyhawk M vs something else. Why I even wrote down the letter back then is beyond me. Ha.
 
denverpilot said:
Funny ... I had a couple I had wrong too that MFB “found” due to the crowdsourcing. I checked each carefully for FAA changes and they hadn’t changed since I flew em. I just wrote down the wrong thing eons ago.

So the aircraft database can cut both ways but for me it fixed a couple.

One was dumb, like a Skyhawk M vs something else. Why I even wrote down the letter back then is beyond me. Ha.
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I just looked up the plane on FlightAware and still flying up in Lake Placid (I flew it in Atlanta). It was a '78 and I started flying it in '79. Brand new plane at the time. And still going strong. Man, those were the good ole days. Go out to the airport on a Saturday and Sunday and all kinds of people on the patio talking flying, watching TOs and landings, etc. Many people taking flying lessons, etc. A great time for aviation.
 
EricBe said:
https://myflightbookblog.blogspot.com/2021/01/can-my-logbook-change-without-me-doing.html
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Eric, thank you for your replies and addressing this issue. For me this is all I need to know and in my opinion this should concern anyone using any on-line logbook application.
I quote from your blog post:
Can my logbook change without me doing anything?

The short answer is "yes."

Anyone being blue to change my logbook entries makes the data unsecure. Others may feel different and that is there prerogative, but I can no longer trust the data that I originally entered.
 
BrianNC said:
Ah thanks! So when it comes time to sort, how would you sort for say complex time?
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Don't really need to "sort" per se - complex subtotals should show automatically in your totals. But you can also search for flights in complex aircraft and the resulting totals will reflect only flights in complex aircraft. Ditto TAA, high-performance, tailwheel, etc...
 
denverpilot said:
So the aircraft database can cut both ways but for me it fixed a couple.
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That's precisely the goal. The overall trend is towards being more comprehensive (which reduces data entry) and more accurate over time.
 
EricBe said:
Huh, there are a few things that confuse me about what you say above because they don't comport to how things have ever worked in MyFlightbook
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I owe a correction here: all of what I said about not deleting airports and not modifying flights is true but with an exception that I had forgotten about, which actually applies to the specific example discussed earlier.

A little over a year ago, I added an admin tool to look for user-created airports that were duplicates of existing "built-in" airport (ones, typically, with FAA, ICAO, or IATA codes assigned). Most of the time, I do in fact keep these, though I reconcile their geo-coordinates (so that they are truly the exact same location) and I designate the "official" one as being "preferred" (so that "Nearest" picks it up). And I included functionality to optionally delete the user-created code, which would in fact migrate the user's flights from the old to the new code - the goal being that mapping/visited airports/long-cross-country computations would continue to work.

I haven't used the delete functionality much (perhaps a dozen airports), but the X17 example discussed here was indeed one such example.

I need to keep the ability to delete user-created airports; I need that in order to keep database integrity (e.g., people have put their homes in with made up codes; besides being a dumb privacy practice for the user, when that airport goes in the database down to the mobile apps, it causes false-positives when detecting the nearest airport for takeoffs/landings). But I'm going to remove the functionality that updates your flights. So if for some reason I deem it necessary to delete a user-created airport, any flights that reference that airport will continue to do so, they just won't map it, it won't show in visited airports, and it might be missed in ratings progress. Your route-of-flight will remain unchanged, and my earlier statements will become true.
 
EricBe said:
Don't really need to "sort" per se - complex subtotals should show automatically in your totals. But you can also search for flights in complex aircraft and the resulting totals will reflect only flights in complex aircraft. Ditto TAA, high-performance, tailwheel, etc...
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So in other words, when I go to 'Totals', it will automatically sort out complex, HP, etc, and list the hours for it among the breakdown? Anything what would be a category you'd want to sort for it would sort it out for you under 'Totals'?
 
BrianNC said:
So in other words, when I go to 'Totals', it will automatically sort out complex, HP, etc, and list the hours for it among the breakdown? Anything what would be a category you'd want to sort for it would sort it out for you under 'Totals'?
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Precisely. It will also break down PIC and SIC time under each. And you can search on flights in aircraft with these attributes. And ratings progress will account for it. E.g., commercial airplane rating will look for TAA or Complex.
TAA is interesting because you can upgrade an aircraft; if you specify a date for the upgrade, then flights in that aircraft prior to the upgrade are not counted as TAA, but flights after the date are.
 
A question for anybody. I'm transferring my physical logbook one entry at a time into Myflightlogbook. The first few pages putting down all the comments from the CFIs, but starting to get a little tedious. Would you do that? Or is the electronic logbook just really more about keeping up easily with the totals of every category?
 
I didn’t copy over any comments. I’ve got them in the paper copy if I ever want to read them again. I just copied the old entries over for the hours and other data.
 
BrianNC said:
A question for anybody. I'm transferring my physical logbook one entry at a time into Myflightlogbook. The first few pages putting down all the comments from the CFIs, but starting to get a little tedious. Would you do that? Or is the electronic logbook just really more about keeping up easily with the totals of every category?
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I personally did that, but it is indeed a bit tedious. I'd suggest copying the comments for key/notable flights and otherwise focusing on the numbers. Another option, which I did with my old paper logbooks: I scanned them into a PDF file and uploaded that to Training->Endorsements.
 
@EricBe A question. On my computer I have several planes loaded in the software already. But on my phone app, only 3 of them appear in myflightbook. Any idea why?

One more question. Is there any way the 'total' column for flight time can be filled automatically? Or you just have to do it manually?
 
BrianNC said:
@EricBe A question. On my computer I have several planes loaded in the software already. But on my phone app, only 3 of them appear in myflightbook. Any idea why?

One more question. Is there any way the 'total' column for flight time can be filled automatically? Or you just have to do it manually?
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The app caches your aircraft. Tap the refresh icon at the top of the aircraft list page.
The apps can auto fill total time based on your choice of sources. I like to use engine time.
 
I like my jeep books, but they are really more for nostalgia. I use safelog.com for an electronic log. So much easier to filter data when applying for a job
 
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