Logging multiple short legs with quick turnarounds

[Potential]

Hello, I have a UK issued JAA CPL and I work for a charter company in Botswana. We fly multiple legs each day with flight times ranging from 5 minutes to about 1 hour 45 minutes. The flights are mainly to remote bush strips and our usual turnaround time is about 10 minutes.

The accepted way to log this flying here seems to be that you have one line in your logbook for each day of flying and the route is written in the comments. Flight time for the logbook is based on 1.1 x tacho or 1.2 x Hobbs, but Southern African logbooks do not include actual start and end times as is common in Europe.

I'm wondering if it is acceptable for me to log my flights in this way. I know that in the UK, instructors often use one line for one day, but they are generally always taking off from and landing at the same place. One of my main concerns is that I worry that I may encounter some complications when it comes to getting my ATPL issued.

[Whopity]

UK definition of a flight:256 (1) An aircraft is deemed to be in flight:
(a) in the case of a piloted flying machine, from the moment when, after the
embarkation of its crew for the purpose of taking off, it first moves under its
own power, until the moment when it next comes to rest after landing;
UK logging requirement Art 79:(3) The information recorded in accordance with paragraph (2) must include:
(a) the date, the places at which the holder of the log embarked on and disembarked
from the aircraft and the time spent during the course of a flight when the holder
was acting in either capacity; Parachuting flights have logged a continuous sequence as one flight. If the engine does not stop you can log it as one flight I know that in the UK, instructors often use one line for one dayThat has never been accepted.

[nick14]

You can log as one line when you depart and arrive from the same airport and time between flights is no longer than 30 mins.

[ShyTorque]

Problem comes when you get to the time in your career when you need a trolley to carry all your "single line" logbooks to Gatwick. :(

I've done up to 22 sectors in one day.

[Artie Fufkin]

EASA AMC1 FCL.050 Recording of flight time (http://easa.europa.eu/agency-measures/docs/agency-decisions/2011/2011-016-R/AMC%20and%20GM%20to%20Part-FCL.pdf) check out page 22

(f) The particulars of every flight in the course of which the holder of a flight crew licence acts as a member of the operating crew of an aircraft are to be recorded in the appropriate columns using one line for each flight, provided that if an aircraft carries out a number of flights upon the same day returning on each occasion to the same place of departure and the interval between successive flights does not exceed 30 minutes, such series of flights may be recorded as a single entry.

[Radix]

............

[Big Pistons Forever]

I used to fly freight on a series of short legs. I entered the days total in the flight time column and the individual trip flight times in the remarks column Eg YJ-VR(0.5)VR-YJ(0.4)YJ-CD(0.4)CD-VR(0.4) etc etc. Even on a full 9 sector day I could keep the entry to 2 lines in the log book if I kept the writing small.

[Trim Stab]

The simple answer is to get an electronic logbook with an automatic flight timer.

I use LogTenPro as my logbook, and "Flight Timer" to log flights. Flight Timer users the iPad sensors to log blocks off/blocks on, and uses the GPS to read the ICAO code from the inbuilt database. At the end of the day, I just send all the flights into LTP and that's it.

I can print my logbook out in any format that is appropriate - eg JAR format, FAA format, and a couple of dozen other formats.

I am slightly amazed when I see pilots still using paper logbooks.

[Wageslave]

I am slightly amazed when I see pilots still using paper logbooks.

I'm slightly amazed when I see pilots trusting their precious data to be safe a hard disk or t'internet.

But each to their own!

[BizJetJock]

Why is that inherently any less safe than paper? If backed up properly it is equivalent to having a duplicate paper logbook in the bank vault.
My first logbook is unreadable, although I still have it as the police recovery team retrieved from the car in the bottom of a river; I have friends who have lost all their log books through fire or burglary. So unless you do duplicate paper logbooks and keep them separate it is not any safer!

[Agaricus bisporus]

Sure you can lose a logbook through fire or flood, but you can't lose it by finger trouble or degradation of the disk. A book however is far, far more fireproof than any disk. As we are well into the "generation of lost photos" due to digital cameras I think it is a reasonable assumption that a similar situation will exist with electronic logbooks. They are just susceptible to extra and catastrophic hazards that logbooks don't suffer from.

Anyway, back on topic, one line per airframe per day and listing landing sites is my technique. How else can you do it with multiple sectors in helos or pleasure flights/lifting or shuttles? No one has ever objected. Why would they?
What baffles me is why so may people tediously write times to the nearest minute instead of nearest tenth of an hour /five minutes and then go on to add take-off and landing times. Why?

My 16000hrs are contained in one and a half military logbooks, the first book of 5000hrs is mostly in helos on short/multiple sectors, the other half book 10000hrs airline. Most sectors in a day was about 38 on the southern N Sea unless you count 60-70 pleasure flying at big events which was far from unusual. I'd be on 10 logbooks now with one line per flight (and still writing it up).

As ever in aviation, be practical.

[Trim Stab]

My electronic logbook syncs across laptop, tablet and smart phone, is backed up to the cloud and by wifi to a remote hard-disk in the loft, and to two others in different locations. For the past five years or so since I moved away from paper, all my flights are logged to the nearest minute (including off-blocks, take-off, land-on, blocks-on), and totalled automatically. Night times are all calculated automatically too. All this is achieved effortlessly, just by pressing a couple of buttons at the end of the day.

At a glance I can see exactly my currency on different types, how many days to end of currency on my FAA, EASA and KCAA licences, my flight time and duty limits, how long to expiry of ratings and medicals, and have pretty pictures of every aircraft I have ever flown.

As ever in aviation - be practical!

[Straighten Up]

Trim

What e-logbook do you use? Your own excel or a purchased one? Thanks

[foxmoth]

60-70 pleasure flying at big events

How long a flight - seems a heck of a day, say 10 mins a trip, plus 5 mins to un strap one lot and strap in the next, that's a 16:30 day without the stops for fuel/lunch/pee!:eek:

Going back to the original post, I often do 12-14 trips a day, 15 mins airborne with a break for lunch, I normally log two separate lots, one for the morning and one afternoon, just put in start and finish time, total time and number of flights.

[Agaricus bisporus]

3 1/2 minutes airborne, 12 lifts per hour can be achieved with a good ground team. Certainly a tiring day!