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Do you have an electronic LogBook system that you can recommend and why? Price? Ease of use? Stable & bug free? Solid history of reliability?



It is 2016, and I have not yet gone to an electronic logbook system. I am looking for suggestions of what’s decent these days for a simple private pilot.

Here is a sad tale of an email that went out from one company:

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Originally Posted by skylinked.com
SkyLinked Logbook is Shutting Down December 31st 2015

After 6 years in business, SkyLinked.com has decided to sunset its pilot logbook product at the end of 2015. The website will remain operational through December 31, 2015. At that point it will be shut down.

We have sincerely appreciated your business and hope you have enjoyed using the product. With a renewed passion and focus in other areas we simply can no longer give SkyLinked the attention it deserves.

There are several great logbook services available. We hope one of them will fit your needs going forward. Here are a few options you might want to consider:

LogTen Pro X (Mac, iPad, iPhone) - Cost Varies
Pilot Pro (iPhone, iPad, Web) - $39.99
MyFlightBook (iPhone, iPad, Web) - Free

Thank you for your understanding and support. Please let us know if you have any questions.

I plan to maintain paper until I can get a few more tickets punched, but at this point I want to start an electronic logbook along side the traditional paper. I have read a few things on other boards and sites, such as AOPA.

http://www.aopa.org/News-and-Video/All-News/2013/August/30/Going-electronic-with-logbooks

Here are some of the options often mentioned. Comments and additions welcomed. For the casual private pilot, what's the best "freeware" choice ? What is the best "pay or subscription" package choice ?

Pilotica http://pilotica.com/
Myflightbook https://myflightbook.com/logbook/default.aspx
Safelog http://www.dauntless-soft.com/products/safelog/
Pilotlog http://www.dauntless-soft.com/products/safelog/
LogbookPro http://www.nc-software.com/Logbook-Pro-Pilot-Flight-Log-Software-for-iPhone-iPod-touch-and-iPad
PilotPartner https://pilotpartner.net/
Zululog https://www.zululog.com/
PilotPro http://pilotpro.com/
PilotPal http://www.pilotpal.com/
FlightLog https://www.flightlogbackup.com/
DropBox https://www.dropbox.com/business?home=300&f=1&_tk=sem_b_goog&_camp=sem-b-goog-us-eng-top-exact&_kw=dropbox|e&_ad=47393997462|1t1|c&gclid=CMuhvo2slMoCFYEfHwodHr4HLw
Google Drive Spreadsheet http://www.google.com/sheets/about/?gclid=CNDW7J2slMoCFYIaHwodU7UCnA
Fltplan https://www.fltplan.com/

Garmin has one now too I believe. It is linked through my Garmin pilot so it automatically logs my flights based on a few different things. Seems to be working good so far.

I use logbook pro. I have the app on my iPhone and iPad, and the program on my computer. My biggest problem was being lazy and not entering flight information. It's easy to enter the flight information now on my iPad or phone while I'm cleaning up after a flight or even while I'm on downwind and all those other people are seeing and avoiding me.

I randomly picked logbook pro several years ago after reading user reviews. They seem like a stable company. I think I pay $40 a year. Logs are backed up to their cloud and on an external hard drive at the house. I also export the logs every year to an excel sheet.

I'm interested to hear what others have to say. I have no idea if logbook pro is better than other systems. It's been reliable, easy, and bug free for me. It's flexible as well, with the ability to make specific categories and reports for my military flying. I tried my own spreadsheets for a while, but the ease of use is totally worth the cost for me.

Brett

I use excel as my digital logbook. It's easy to use, easy to modify, should always be supported, and auto calculates.

Been using the same spreadsheet for 7 years now. I back it up with a paper logbook.

I use Smart Logbook for Android. It's an app on my phone. It's great...if I remember to use it before I fly.

I have been using Logten Pro since 2008. It's a good program and works well. The support has been ok. I was lazy about keeping my paper book updated. With Logten on my phone I do it before I get out of the aircraft. It's that easy to use. And links to cloud and home computer. If you are working on ratings I would keep paper too. It will just make things easier on check ride day.

But the thing that really pisses me off is they keep changing their pricing program. I had to buy the program's several times over the years to the tune of $100 a pop. Then they go to a yearly subscription fee. I really felt screwed. I'm down the hole so far now I keep paying.

I wish I had kept up my paper log book as I went along. I may go back copy it all into paper log books. It would be nice to have an easy out next time they hit me up for $$.

If you go electronic input all your flights from day one if you can. It's a nice way to track time in makes and models.

Short version, electronic works well. Can get expensive, nice to have on a smart phone, keep a paper book as well.[emoji3]

I do the spreadsheet/paper logbook method as well, with a minor twist: I periodically take a photo of the "Flights" screen on my Garmin 496 (that's mounted in my panel) with my phone, and transfer that data to my logbook.

For fun, I wrote a prototype iPhone app that uses the Tesseract OCR (Optical Character Recognition) engine https://code.google.com/p/tesseract-ocr/ to automatically decode the flight log image from the camera and spit out a file that I can import into any spreadsheet. The OCR is currently less than perfect and not ready for prime-time, but could probably be vastly improved by training it on a corpus containing the world's airport identifiers, etc. I figure the number of pilots who would use this method is pretty small though, so it'll probably remain a prototype.

I use MyFlightBook. Seems to work pretty good. Annually I export the data, print it out and past it into my logbook.

ZuluLog!
https://www.zululog.com/

*It's Free
*Online Interface
*Supports Android
*Supports iPad
*Tracks Currency

whee wrote:I use MyFlightBook. Seems to work pretty good. Annually I export the data, print it out and past it into my logbook.

Ditto, but from the Grand Rapids EFIS. Simple and easy.

whee wrote:I use MyFlightBook. Seems to work pretty good. Annually I export the data, print it out and past it into my logbook.

I second this, but I don't put it in my old logbook. I use a three hole punch and a binder. Of course I filled all my logbooks before I went to this website as my primary.

I use zululog. App is on all my devices. Works great. But my paper log is the real deal.

I've used Logshare for quite a while. They are no longer standalone, and you had to buy "Weathermeister" in order to get the logbook. I still keep a paper log as well.

Foreflight just released a Logbook if you're using higher than their most basic plan and it looks pretty promising.

Chris

I use logten pro. But it's way too expensive for what it is. It's like 80 bucks a year.

Foreflight just announced a logbook feature for foreflight. That seems like the way to go.

I have logbook pro, I just kind of picked it. I think that it is way too complicated for my basic needs. I would not recommend it, but am too far into it to change.

I use MyFlightBook and have been pretty happy. It tracks currency as well. Also not mentioned earlier is there is also an Android app in addition to Iphone and web. You can export to .csv format so it is easy to keep safe backups that can be imported into other programs.

I use Easy Pilot Logbook. Keeps track of everything you want it to. Super easy to use. I have it on my laptop and phone. You can print it out and use in in paper form if you so desire. Best of all its FREE.

http://easypilotlogbook.com/

I'll be the odd man out here and ask why do you need an electronic logbook?
I've lost photos & stuff (twice so far) when a computer went gunnysack on me, and I have no doubt it'll happen again. Don't want to lose my flying records when that happens, and I don't see the point in keeping an electronic logbook plus a paper backup.
I carry my current logbook (I think I'm on my 4th, after 20 years of flying) in the airplane, and fill it out when I get out of the plane for the last time after a day's flying. If you can remember and/or bother to enter the flight(s) in an electronic logbook app, why not just do the same in a paper logbook?

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Well.... I lost one of my paper logbooks. I am sure it is not "LOST", it's just that I have not been able to locate it in years. Luckily I had a partial photocopy of it. Point being, both electronic as well as paper can go MIA.

I think many of the newer versions of programs like Foreflight, Garmin Pilot, and FlyQ-EFB will/do include electronic logbooks. I like the idea of dual records, but then I am not one of those prolific gobs and gobs of hours a year flyers.

https://www.foreflight.com/products/logbook/

I used Garmin Flightbook for years. I simply downloaded all my flights from my 396. I'm still upset with Garmin that they dropped this ability to download from the 796. Now I have both running at once. The 396 almost exclusively for the Flightbook function.

Why not just use paper? Flights where I forgot to write down my start/stop times, missed recording a night landing, or made an arithmetic error in the tally.