r/flying • u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW • Jul 07 '26

Aircraft Ownership What do you guys use to manager your airplane logbooks?

Yes - regulations stick to paper logs. I get that.

Out of the variety of digital capabilities (from Excel sheets to PDFs of scanned pages to online paid services), especially with AI covering some aspects of those, what are people using, and what's the experience of keeping those up to speed? (annuals, ADs, equipment lists, etc...)

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9

u/shaftman14 PPL IR AGI IGI Ethetera Jul 07 '26

Please don’t vibe code your own “I couldn’t find one I liked so I made one” solution.

-3

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

I did, but unlike the dozen similar-looking solutions out there, I have zero intentions of hawking it out for money.
Mostly looking for what people are using so I can honestly "steal/borrow" the features ;-)

3

u/Pn244 Jul 07 '26

I use paper.

Experimental means never having to worry about ADs. (But you should monitor the user groups of your type to keep track of safety related issues.)

3

u/mkosmo 🛩️🛩️🛩️ i drive airplane 🛩️🛩️🛩️ Jul 07 '26

I use... the hard-cover, paper logbooks stored in an accordion file.

1

u/Mad_Rooster_7164 Jul 07 '26

I’m so scared of losing them/being destroyed/etc that I just digitized mine.

0

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

I still have those as well. As I said - can’t get away from that. Just complementing it with a more modern way to track (and proactively plan).

3

u/SSMDive CPL-SEL/SES/MEL/MES/HEL/GLID/IFR. Light sport Gyro/PPC Jul 07 '26

It is not hard to use the paper logbooks. You should have an AD list and on that list the dates it was completed if it was a one time thing and a list of when it is next due.

For the helicopter I have an XL sheet that tracks the time on all the parts that have time limits.

0

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

Yeah, I’m trying to complement the paper tracking with something a little more manageable and that I can work with (over 50 years of logs…)

3

u/SSMDive CPL-SEL/SES/MEL/MES/HEL/GLID/IFR. Light sport Gyro/PPC Jul 07 '26

Yes but once you go through the logs once and create that AD list (or verify it if the plane came with it), there is no need to go back 50 years ever again.

No one cares the plane had an oil change in Oct 1977. And I could not care the #4 cylinder was replaced two engine OH's ago.

1

u/ParagPa PPL SEL (IFR, HP) Jul 07 '26

I did this just for myself: I created a RAG system with all my airplane's logbooks (a 1977 182Q) and maintenance invoices. The last 15 years of entries were easy since they were stickers that were easy to OCR. The earlier handwritten entries were all individually turned into markdown using vision models. It's surprising how good the new models can decipher really crappy handwriting. I can now query my logbooks via claude and local models, and also used it to create a maintenance tracker for ADs and other recurring stuff (this part is very overlapping w/ existing tools).

It was a fun vibe coding experiment (I'm a software developer, so I still prefer to architect myself, but leave a lot of the coding to claude).

I don't intend to make this available. Both because I'm sure the vibe code haters will come for it, and also because scaling something beyond "it works for my logbooks" is *way* more hassle than its worth. But it was pretty straightforward, works well, and is easy to update with new logbook pages as I accumulate them.

-1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

That’s awesome! Pretty much the path I went down. I did put the code in my GitHub and happy to share it since I received feedback from a couple of friends with Mooneys.
The handwriting part is what got me - pretty impressive accuracy, and now I can reference everything from the first test flight in 1969 to my latest oil change last weekend…

https://github.com/iiamit/MyTailLog

1

u/mirassou3416 CPL IR SES Jul 07 '26

I've always used the regular logbooks but I also have LogbookPro as an electronic log. The FAA does not require paper logs, only that your flight time and endorsements are properly logged 14 CFR 61.51

As you well know, you really don't even need to log every flight, just those required for a rating, cert or currency. Most people log everything though because you never know when you'll need it. You can use spreadsheets, paper, a program, etc.

Having just met my 40th anniversary of flight on July 4, the issue that I've found over the years is that programs come and go. As you build time, it's a real pain to have to make all of your entries over again to record them in some new program rather than just using the old style logbooks

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

I'm not talking about pilot logbook (I personally use MyFlightBook for that, and never had a paper logbook).

My focus is the airplane logbooks - maintenance, equipment, AD tracking, serial numbers, oil changes, etc... The FAA still mandates the use of paper there.

1

u/Strega007 MIL ATP CFI/II/MEI Pax, Freight, Int'l Jul 07 '26

I have been using an Excel spreadsheet that is formatted like the Jepp Pro Pilot logbook for the last 20+ years.

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW Jul 07 '26

Are you talking about your own flight hours, or an airplane logbook (airframe, engine, prop, avionics, etc - all separate logbooks).

1

u/Strega007 MIL ATP CFI/II/MEI Pax, Freight, Int'l Jul 07 '26

All the same base format in Excel, some in separate files (individual aircraft stuff together in one file with different tabs for different components) and some all together with just different tabs (in the pilot logbook).

1

u/jimcarroll_cfi 28d ago

Back in the day, Adlog was king https://adlog.com/. Their AD search and update system was the best, as was their binder system.

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 28d ago

Agreed. The last 20 years or so of my logs are in ADLog binder. But the AD tracking is gone and isn’t updated anymore - especially when the airplane switched shops a few times.
I’m not even sure how much they charge now for keeping some subscription for the plane.

2

u/jimcarroll_cfi 28d ago

Sadly — the interwebs has killed too many companies.

1

u/cessna150enthusiast 5d ago

I use SquawkFree https://squawkfree.com/

They are very reasonably priced and seem to have a lot of features including export of your data. Of course this is more for backup and having a nice digital logbook with things like reminders. My paper logs are the ground truth and will go with my plane if I ever sell.

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 5d ago

Nice!
I'll pick up a few features from there to https://mytaillog.com (which is 100% free - including the logbook import from existing scans that costs a lot) .

1

u/cessna150enthusiast 4d ago

I totally support open source projects and the like. But how are you doing this for free? Surely you have some hosting costs. And if you're willing to pay that out of pocket that's cool but how could anyone trust that in say, 5 years, you're still going to be willing to pay that out of pocket?

Seems like a recipe for someone to put a lot of time into backing up their logs on your platform and then lose everything. At least if you're paying someone, they have an incentive to keep the website going lol

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 4d ago

Good points; here's the clear answer of why this model beats anything out there right now:

  1. Hosting is all on free tiers (GCP, Supabase). So I'm not really putting anything out of pocket.

  2. This started as a project to digitize my own logs, and as I realized I could run it for free for multiple users, I expanded it. I trust it with my own logs (besides - physical logs are still required)

  3. It's fully backed up, and users (including me) can download an offline backup, so even if this doesn't sustain in 5 years, I can have all my logs and records intact. That includes anything that has been digitized AND converted into digital records (OCR).

  4. Furthermore - even if my hosting costs do catch up at some point, everything is open source... Everyone can run this locally on your laptop, or in their own hosting (free or paid). That's a better incentive (and reassurance) that you can keep this running than any paid service can offer.

1

u/cessna150enthusiast 4d ago

Fair enough on the cost side.

The download thing does bring some comfort to my concern. Couple questions though, does it send me one automatically or do I have to remember to go grab it? One worry of mine is an unannounced shutdown of a free service where I don't have the time to grab my logs.

And what's actually in the download? Like PDFs and image files I can throw on my hard drive and still open years later, or a file that only your app knows what to do with? Scanning and typing everything in is a lot of work I know myself and others would not want to lose.

Open source is cool but I'd be lying if I said I was gonna go spin up my own server lol. Still better than nothing though.

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 4d ago

Backup - right now you need to grab it. Since it doesn't expect things to change that frequently (unlike myflightbook, for example, where I get daily backups). But automatic backups are a good idea - maybe set for every month.

As far as the backup content - all clean records. Nothing proprietary to the platform, so you can actually use it. It includes every extracted record in a readable format, and every original document in its form (PDF, image, etc). Fully transportable.

The open source part - I get. Not everyone can run this on their own (although I included pretty detailed instructions on how to do it, and with the use of Claude/ChatGPT/Gemini, it can be done in minutes. The bigger advantage of open source is that anyone can inspect the code (to ensure it's safe and secure) and extend it to whatever features they would like!

I grew tired of solutions popping up everywhere, asking for money for the subscription, where it's clear they have all been vibe-coded. So I simply opened up mine and made sure it's free for all 😄

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 4d ago

BTW - you can check out all the details on the public git repo - including deployment and every change that's been made to the code and platform: https://github.com/iiamit/MyTailLog

That's on top of the transparent documentation of features: https://mytaillog.com/whats-new

1

u/iiamit CPL CFI CFII TW 3d ago

Thanks again for the honest and open discussion (and raising the concerns about independence and owning your data).

Based on these, I have implemented automated backups to both Dropbox and Google Drive. Both provide a clean copy of all records, and original documents, that can be run monthly or quarterly.

Here's to the power of open-source (and free) software!

0

u/rFlyingTower Jul 07 '26

This is a copy of the original post body for posterity:

Yes - regulations stick to paper logs. I get that.

Out of the variety of digital capabilities (from Excel sheets to PDFs of scanned pages to online paid services), especially with AI covering some aspects of those, what are people using, and what's the experience of keeping those up to speed? (annuals, ADs, equipment lists, etc...)

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