The best way to log your flights
A simple routine for logging every flight accurately, whether you fly once a month or every day, and why the moment you log matters most.
The short answer
Log each flight the same day, straight from the blocks times you noted at the aircraft, in hours and minutes. Keep one logbook as the single source of truth, and let your totals, currencies and licence progress come from it rather than keeping them in separate lists.
Note four things at the aircraft
Everything else can be filled in later. These four cannot be reconstructed reliably once you have gone home.
- Off block time and on block time
- Takeoff and landing count, split into day and night
- Aircraft registration
- Who was pilot in command, and any instructor or examiner on board
Log it once, in one place
Most errors come from copying: flight times into a paper logbook, again into a spreadsheet, again into a currency tracker. Each copy is a chance for the figures to drift apart. A single logbook that calculates everything else from the flights removes the copying.
If you fly your own or a club aircraft, the same entry can also update the aircraft hours, which is one less form in the clubhouse.
Check it before you close it
- Function time never adds up to more than the total block time
- Night and IFR time are part of the total, never added to it
- Simulator sessions go on their own line
- Instructor flights carry the instructor's name and signature
Where caeloo fits
caeloo was built around this routine. You enter the times once, on your phone at the aircraft or later on the web, and the logbook, currencies, licence progress and aircraft hours all update from that one entry. It also works offline, so the flight can be logged before you leave the apron.