Sitting down and filling out the standard insurance application and the question of flight time and experience is all over the place.

My question to all of you is: How do you maintain and log your flight time?

What do you use as a time keeping device (hobbs, tach, stopwatch, sundial)?

Just wondering is there is a better way.

Your query piqued my interest, too. I didn't really know if it was "block to block" or "take off to landing". Here's what I discovered according to FAR Part 1:
Flight time" means:

(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing;

Probably the only accurate way to time this would be to make notations of the actual time from commencing movement to stop. It might be the Hobbs is close enough to be accurate. Military flight time is "take off to landing", when converting to civil aviation the common factor is to add .3 to each flight to allow for movement.

I hope that helps...we'll see some other thoughts...

I log right of the Hobbs, thats why i paid for it. These birds don't come standard with a hobbs and i enjoyed having one while renting so i paid for that option when they were building it. So the second that 540 starts i consider myself flying, and it feels like it to because i'm so happy to be sitting there. Peter

I put some time in the book every now and again to ensure currency, other than that I don't bother any more.

a64pilot wrote:I put some time in the book every now and again to ensure currency, other than that I don't bother any more.

Me too. I keep the logbook more like a flying journal. I'll note night, instrument and other currency times just to have it in case something bad happens, but for the most part not much gets logged anymore.

When I was working, the company kept all the records and I counted on the chief pilot to keep me from timing out. All I did with my own logbooks was do a one line monthly total based on what I submitted to work, and on occasion, add my off-duty trips to the mix if it was a particularly memorable flight/passenger.

The only time that I really need right now is tach time for oil/screen changes, and that stays in the airplane in the can.

Gump

hello

I log right off the Hobbs. While I do keep track in a regular bound logbook, I also made an Excel spreadsheet that breaks it down by category, make and model and also tells me the information for the last 90 days and the last year. That way when I'm filling out those annual forms for insurance and my medical application, all the info I need is pretty much at-a-glance without having to break out the calculator too much. The 90 day feature also lets me immediately see if I'm not current in a particular area.

patrol guy wrote:For several years, I just took the time off the tach when I bought an airplane and then subtracted that from the tach when I sold it, and then entered a block time. (ie. cessna 180 - 325 hours) in my log book.

Now that I fly pipeline patrol. I enter the tach time, since I don't have a hobbs meter. I've noticed that at my power settings, I only get 4 tach hours for 5 watch hours. I figure that I have about 20 percent more actual hours then I show in log books.

Yikes! I've been doing tach time for at least 15 years, cross referenced with my watch, for as long as I've owned a plane. So....maybe I should get a hobbs meter. And I log everything, even thought about the time I just sit in and make vroom vroom sounds

See ya, Bub

I go by hobbs, it seems the easiest.

My dad has an old high school buddy who was a navy fighter pilot, blue angel, the whole nine yards and just recently got into GA and bought himself a cirrus. We gave him crap because he racked up 350 hours on it in the first year, and upgraded to a SR22 after a year and a half when it had 525 hours on it. He lives near Washington D.C, so we thought maybe quite a bit of the time was holding, waiting for clearance, filing, etc. This summer he took me for a ride and showed me how the meter he was logging time off of only counted when the plane was above stall speed. I bet that 350 hours the first year would have been close to 500 hobbs. Not a bad year!

I just write down the beginning/ending tach time, close enough for me. Like Gump, I kinda keep my pilot logs as a flying diary- where I went, with who,etc. But it is helpful to have a realistic idea of time in type, currency, etc for insurance quote purposes.

Eric

Enter the flight time logged on the Garmin 296. After quite a few flights cross checking it with a digital timer in the cockpit I decided it was just as accurate - at least to the 10th of an hour - and recorded "block to block" just as the FAA allows.

I ran into a very seasoned Ag pilot and asked him how many hours he'd flown. He thought a moment and said, "Well, I've worn out about 16 engines, so I guess that's over 24000."

tom

Don't you have a legal requirement to log flight time? What happens when FAA or whoever compare flight times to maintenance release times or don't some of you folks log time on your Aircraft as well?

Student Pilot wrote:Don't you have a legal requirement to log flight time? What happens when FAA or whoever compare flight times to maintenance release times or don't some of you folks log time on your Aircraft as well?

I think you have to log the time that satisify's your recency of experience requirements. My aircraft time is straight off the tach.

donknee wrote:Your query piqued my interest, too. I didn't really know if it was "block to block" or "take off to landing". Here's what I discovered according to FAR Part 1:
Flight time" means:

(1) Pilot time that commences when an aircraft moves under its own power for the purpose of flight and ends when the aircraft comes to rest after landing;

I use this method. I have to get to that magic 500hr for the best insurance rates. RB

From 14CFR61.51 Pilot Logbooks;

(a) Training time and aeronautical experience. Each person must document and record the following time in a manner acceptable to the Administrator:

(1) Training and aeronautical experience used to meet the requirements for a certificate, rating, or flight review of this part.

(2) The aeronautical experience required for meeting the recent flight experience requirements of this part.

Interestingly if you go to any other country and don't have a complete logbook they look at you like you have a third eye. I use LogbookPro for the computer and back it up with a paper copy for that reason. Lots of work but glad I did.

When I worked for an FBO during college, for aircraft without a Hobbs meter, they took the tach time x 1.2 to get the total rental time. I've used that ever since. It works out to be pretty close. I figure between pattern work/ground time (low RPM) and xc flights (higher RPM over a given time), it balances out and is close enough.

Kenny Chapman wrote:From 14CFR61.51 Pilot Logbooks;

(a) Training time and aeronautical experience. Each person must document and record the following time in a manner acceptable to the Administrator:

(1) Training and aeronautical experience used to meet the requirements for a certificate, rating, or flight review of this part.

(2) The aeronautical experience required for meeting the recent flight experience requirements of this part.

Interestingly if you go to any other country and don't have a complete logbook they look at you like you have a third eye. I use LogbookPro for the computer and back it up with a paper copy for that reason. Lots of work but glad I did.

Not to mention that I think that their are good reasons with regard to liability and insurance for keeping an accurate, complete logbook.

I switched over to Logbook Pro as well about a year ago. I had a lot of down time after having shoulder surgery to do the data input. I use a program that Logbook Pro bought from a friend of mine call the Airline Pilot's Dailey Logbook. The sweet part of it all is that I can download my schedule into APDL and after I fly, it syncs with Logbook Pro and autofills my logbook. I believe that Logbook Pro has a similar program for GA users. Then I just have multiple backup copies of my Logbook Pro logbook as well as the printed version you can print out. It's a pretty slick program. It found a lot of calculating mistakes that I had made in my paper logbooks.

Just finished off another of those smaller pilot logbooks and am looking at a "Senior Pilot Flight Log and Record". Wondering what people keep track of for the long term. I keep track of things mainly for insurance purposes, but also hold onto the dream of working part time part 135 or Ag, once I pay down my debt to the man.
I also have an earlier version of Logbook Pro which would break down the categories automatically, but am years behind in getting that caught up to date.
For instance, my current columns are Total Flight Time, SEL, SES, T/O & Land (Day and Night), Instrument (Actual and Simulated), Night, Cross Country, Tailwheel, Complex, High Performance, Dual, PIC.
Do I need to keep track of High Performance once it's > 500 hours?
Why is the "Solo" column in all the logbooks?
Should I keep a separate column for ski flying like I do for Complex aircraft?
Suppose I should leave columns available for rotorcraft and gliders too!??
I will keep the columns for MEL and "As Flight Instructor", but what about Simulator, SIC, Ground Training Received, and As Ground Instructor columns. Does anybody find that these have been utilized? I too use the logbook as a book of memories, but looking for ideas on how to make it a useful tool from those with more pages filled out and thoughts on what they would have done or are doing to fill them out.
Thanks.
Matt

There is a free internet based log company called "zulu log".