Logbooks have been around since the start of aviation when the Wright brothers documented their trial flights before successfully completing the first flight in 1903. The importance and necessity to keep a detailed pilot log was re-iterated later in 1926 as part of the Air Commerce Act. The requirement to keep track of your hours as a pilot has continued to this present day, but the format in which we detail our flights is everchanging.
During your training, you most definitely would have been issued a paper logbook to fill in and amend as you progressed through the course. It is advantageous as throughout training you will be required to gain signatures from instructors and examiners. However when you land your first job, perhaps transferring to a digital logbook would be more suitable.
As of late, there has been a meteoric rise in the number of pilots that are using electronic logbooks to keep track of their flights and stay on top of their paperwork. There are so many advantages to transferring your flights into a digital logbook here are just a few:
- Increased Security and Redundancy
Digital logbooks are primarily updated into the ‘cloud’ and can be accessed from a variety of devices at one time. The ability to keep secure backups of your data is one of the biggest reasons to invest in an electronic logbook. No more fear of accidentally damaging or losing your logbook and the repercussions of not having a valid track of your flight data.
Many pilots like to use the electronic logbook as redundancy for their paper logbook, it provides a safety blanket to the individual if anything were to happen to the original log.
- Time Saver
When you are a professional pilot there isn’t much time to sit down and manually write in all the flight data and then work out new totals and compare those to your flight time limitations. Digital logbooks have in-built algorithms removing this hard work for you.
- Easily shareable
Digital logbooks are now recognized by governing bodies and future employers as accredited data history. You can instantly get the data you need when you are applying for a new job and can share it with friends and colleagues with one simple click.
- Analyze your flights
There are many ways you can now analyze your flying; how many passengers you carried, the number of night landings you have completed this month or the total hours you have flown this year. At a click of a button, all the data is there, you do have to sift through pages to compare this month’s data against the last, it can even be tabulated or transferred easily to a graph.
- Increased accuracy
Calculating your actual flight time against flight time limitations and your roster can be difficult manually but with a digital logbook, you don’t have to do anything. Digital logbooks are known to have increased accuracy which is imperative for meeting the legality of flight time limitations.
- Convenience
A logbook can be a heavy addition to a pilot’s flight bag, yet you wouldn’t think twice about not taking your iPad or smartphone, and that is all you need to carry, to add and amend your logbook whilst you’re busy in the flight deck.
So now you want to invest in an electronic logbook? You don’t have to look any further, AVIATION INSIDER has a free electronic logbook that provides the benefits above and more. All you must do is sign up for a free account and you will have access to it immediately, you can set it up in seconds.
