Whether you are a brand new student pilot or have stacks of paper logbooks detailing a long aviation career, choosing an electronic pilot logbook will change your life. I know that may sound like an exaggeration (and I’m admittedly a little biased), but during my 5 years working on our support team here at Coradine, I heard those exact words from many pilots! They said things like:
“Excellent electronic logbook with tons of functionality. Makes me comfortable knowing I have a super accurate electronic version of my logbook if something were to happen to my paper version!”
“The organization and options for presentation are unparalleled.”
Need to be convinced? Well, here are our top 5 reasons using an electronic logbook like LogTen Pro will make your life and career as a pilot easier and better.
1. Save Time
You’re busy, I understand completely. There are so many things to fit into the day, especially if you are a professional pilot. When you dreamed of a career flying, I’d bet that filling in line after line of a logbook by hand and checking and rechecking math was not part of the dream!
With an electronic logbook you’ll never have to dig around in your bag for a pen again. You won’t have to write out each airport and aircraft ID over and over, or pull out your calculator to add up totals or figure out if you’re within regulated flight, duty and rest limits. With LogTen Pro, the leading logbook for iOS and Mac, this is all automatically taken care of for you. You have instant access to the answers to common questions about your flight time like total time by type, PIC time, night time, and total time in the last 12 months. Absolutely zero math necessary!
LogTen Pro even has a feature called Fly Now. Tap one button and LogTen Pro will automatically use GPS data to determine your location, put the current time into the Out field, add your default aircraft and more.
All this equals less time logging, and more time flying!
2. Keep Secure Backups
You NEED a backup of your logbook. One of the biggest reasons to choose an electronic logbook is the ability to keep secure backups of your data. You may be horrified to learn some of the stories of misfortune I’ve been told of logbook related disasters. Fires, floods, stolen bags, you name it. If your precious flight time is only stored in one flimsy paper logbook, you are putting yourself at risk of losing the entire record of your pilot career. Not only will hours and hours of your time be wasted if something happens to your logbook, but you will have nothing to show if you decide to apply for a new job. With LogTen Pro, you can save as many backups as you like to iCloud, Dropbox or both! Even if you drop your bag right into a fire or your iPhone falls in the ocean, your logbook will be safe and secure, ready to be added to a new device, not to mention you can print as many paper copies as you like at any time.
3. Filter and Organize Your Flying
Need to know how many Night hours you have in a specific aircraft type? What about how many ILS approaches you have flown into a certain airport? Sure you could sit down and carefully look through each line of your paper logbook and add everything up yourself. And then check and recheck those numbers because it is easy to make mistakes. But with an electronic pilot logbook there is no need to ever do math! Let the logbook do the work for you!
LogTen Pro has a very handy feature called “Smart Groups” that allows you to filter and organize your flying any way you could imagine. Basic totals like Night, SIC, PIC, Cross Country, etc. are displayed automatically for each aircraft type you’ve flown, but the groups allow you to get even more specific and personalized. Want to learn more about this feature? Check out our “Harnessing the power of Smart Groups” article.
4.Print Professional Reports
There’s nothing professional about showing up for an interview with a paper logbook full of white out, errors, and hard to read handwriting. Instead, hand over a neat and beautiful printed logbook generated exactly to the specifications of your interviewer. LogTen Pro has over a hundred different report formats so that you can print a logbook that looks just like your paper logbook of choice. There are even companies we partner with like Prosoft that sell specialized logbook paper. Just last week I had a pilot tell me that he went to an interview and barely even had to talk because they took one look at his professionally printed logbook and said it was the best logbook they had ever seen. He was hired on the spot!
5. Ensure Accuracy, Legality, and Safety
Keeping track of your flight hours is so important, but what’s the point if they aren’t at all accurate? With an electronic logbook you can be certain that your totals are accurate, and track things like duty and rest to make sure you are always current. When you import your schedule, or enter upcoming flights ahead of time, then log actual times as you fly, LogTen Pro’s powerful Plan feature automatically monitors all your limits, currencies, and certificates and warns you of any possible issues.
LogTen Pro even has a special Flight Audit report that scans your logbook for any possible errors so you can be sure there isn’t even one flight out of place. Accuracy in your logbook is paramount whether you are a private pilot filling out insurance applications, a business pilot filling out tax forms or an airline pilot ensuring you are legal to fly your next duty period. Skip the guessing and math, and opt for an electronic pilot logbook.
Your logbook is the record of your life as a pilot, and there is nothing more important than a safe, tidy, and accurate logbook when applying for a job. If you would like to try LogTen Pro, the professional pilot logbook for iPhone, iPad, and Mac, click here to download it today!
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