Electronic logbook

[BEagle]

Can I respectfully make a suggestion? If you're thinking of leaving Her Majesty's Service and fly civilian at any time, be sure to add your military flights to a civilian 'logbook' too with the off and on block times. LASORS 2010 allowed factoring of military logbooks, but under EASA it doesn't technically exist any more...

As someone who no doubt will be denigrated as a 'cold war dinosaur', I would point out that this is EXACTLY what I recommended around 20 years ago....

'Factoring' of military logbooks was only ever permitted under the conditions stated in Appendix B to Section A of LASORS2010. Since the advent of Part-FCL, no such allowance is permitted and hence it is even more important that military pilots wishing to take up civilian flying in later life keep a civil log book with flight times entered in accordance with civil requirements as well as their military Pilots Flying Logbook.

FFS it takes about a minute to enter the details after each flight - with the amount of flying people manage these days, why is it such a problem? The only problem I recall was when someone walked off with all the logbooks for the Sqn Cdr or Stn Cdrs' signatures and didn't bring them back for a week...

[beardy]

If you don't have a paper copy what will you show your grandchildren? I have found my father's wartime logbook fascinating and have visited some of the aircraft he flew.

[Herod]

I have found my father's wartime logbook fascinating and have visited some of the aircraft he flew.

On the other hand, I've visited some of the aircraft I flew with my children and grandchildren. I was quite shocked when I first found an airframe I had flown sitting in a museum, but now I accept it as normal.

[Trim Stab]

Originally Posted by Herod

On the other hand, I've visited some of the aircraft I flew with my children and grandchildren. I was quite shocked when I first found an airframe I had flown sitting in a museum, but now I accept it as normal.

One of many advantages of electronic logbooks is the enormous wealth of information they can store compared to paper logbooks. I typed all my paper logbooks into an electronic logbook. I then googled every individual aircraft I have ever flown (120) and traced photos and their histories. Quite an interesting exercise - I found four had been crashed, two with fatalities.

It took a few years to complete the whole exercise, just doing a bit here and there when I had time.

The electronic logbooks then work out all sorts of interesting facts like automatic night hours, draw nice maps with all your routes, produce just about any statistic you want. Way better than paper logbooks and way more useful.

I even have an app which fills in my logbook automatically - it uses the iPhone or ipAD sensors to detect when the aircraft moves off blocks, when it gets airborne, when it lands and when it is on blocks, and even automatically records the ICAO code of the start and end airports, and works out how much of the leg was night.

The only drawbacks is that some retarded aviation authorities that i have to deal with in in Africa take a dim view of them

[Yellow Sun]

I moved to an electronic logbook circa 1990, very shortly after leaving the RAF. The first one was Microlog; written by a BA pilot; based on Clipper (that dates it!); and later I moved to RosterLog. The latter worked out my FTLs, allowances and overtime payments as well. At the end of each month I printed out the flying for that month and put it in a clear pocket display book. Job done.

I am amazed that the RAF is still using quill pens

YS

[FJ2ME]

Thanks again, looks like more votes for MCCPilotLog. I'll check it out. Anyone care to detail the procedures on mil-civil flight times these days? I was under the impression from people i've shared ground school classrooms with that the factoring thing is still happening although I've lost the source of that. Beagle I understand the point about keeping 2 logbooks, but are you also therefore suggesting I start transposing all my military flying since the start into a separate logbook to cover the chock-to-chock time? All help, particularly with references, gratefully accepted.

[Jhieminga]

I just checked and you can print in either RAF-414 format or various civil formats from MCCPilotlog. I'm not familiar with the differences in those formats but I guess that if you can get everything into the database in the right format, you can then get it out again in both options.

I had all my flying logged in an Excel sheet and used this to import into MCCPilotlog. It takes a bit of fiddling but you can modify the data in Excel first before importing. Perhaps you can use that trick in your situation as well.

[Ascoteer]

Originally Posted by FJ2ME

Thanks again, looks like more votes for MCCPilotLog. I'll check it out. Anyone care to detail the procedures on mil-civil flight times these days? I was under the impression from people i've shared ground school classrooms with that the factoring thing is still happening although I've lost the source of that. Beagle I understand the point about keeping 2 logbooks, but are you also therefore suggesting I start transposing all my military flying since the start into a separate logbook to cover the chock-to-chock time? All help, particularly with references, gratefully accepted.

LASORS 2010 allowed factoring of military logbooks to allow taxi time (10mins per training flight, 15 mins for duty flight). There's a link to the document here: http://www.999tom.com/documents/pilotdocs/lasors.pdf

Once EASA came into effect LASORS was superseded by CAP804, which has no mention of factoring for taxi time. Beagle will be able to provide more info on this.

People are still factoring and producing a signed addendum to their logbook on leaving the Service, but I would highly recommend running a civilian logbook alongside your military one, logging the same details,but offblocks to onblocks times, so that you don't get caught out by a future employer not recognising the LASORS factorisation.

[Axel-Flo]

St Austell

Have a look at Coastline Software Mr Andy Thorpe, he's on Linked in and made a really easy and not overly expensive log book programme a few years back.

[ehwatezedoing]

Originally Posted by ArrowFly

Try mccPilotLog. One time pay only and lots of functions. Works on all platforms.

I will second mccPilotLog.
It is worth the money.

I used to run my elogbook on an old (free) software and started to have compatibility problems with it.

With mccPilotLog, you may pay extra to have it saved on "the cloud" if you want.
But you can back it up all by yourself and as much as you need (I email it to me every once in a while)

[Papa_Kilo]

MCC Pilotlog/Crewlounge Pilotlog is a RipOff

If you are considering MCC Pilot Log, here’s my experience:

I purchased MCC Pilot Log Enterprise Edition (Lifetime) 5 months ago because I had heard good reviews and the company’s web site pitched how there were no subscription fees. It cost me about $81.09 after the EUR conversion. The MCC Pilot Log web site states “We do not run a subscription plan. We have 3 editions with one-time fee for life-time use. The basic STD Edition is even FREE.”

During these 5 months I used the software, but suddenly the airline interface stopped working. I went to the support page to log a support ticket and was greeted with the following message:

“IMPORTANT NOTE : 10 years after the first release, and 2600 changes and fixes later, it was time to rebuild mccPILOTLOG on new fundaments.

mccPILOTLOG is still available to existing customers. New customers can still purchase mccPILOTLOG, if they want. However, we are no longer updating mccPILOTLOG. Instead, the team is focusing on the new logbook. We recommend all pilots to migrate to our new app CrewLounge PILOTLOG !”



After my initial disbelief and further investigation I found the FAQ page for people like me who had just purchased what was sold as a lifetime license. Below is an excerpt from the company’s FAQ page:



” I paid for mccPILOTLOG, do I have to pay again ?

We keep our word : your license for mccPILOTLOG remains valid ! You have paid for a lifetime use of mccPILOTLOG, so you can continue to using mccPILOTLOG as long as you want. We do not terminate mccPILOTLOG, your logbook continues to run. We do not terminate support, you continue to receiving the same support as before.

We only terminate further updating and bug fixing. Our team is now focusing on the CrewLounge AERO Suite, a completely new platform created with the latest coding technologies and security protocols. CrewLounge PILOTLOG, as part of the CrewLounge AERO Suite, is the new pilot logbook to replace mccPILOTLOG. CrewLounge PILOTLOG is subscription based, we do no longer offer one-time payments.

We invite all pilots with a lifetime license for mccPILOTLOG to migrate and enjoy the new CrewLounge AERO Suite ! We certainly understand that you are reluctant to switching to a subscription plan. We have GOOD news for you : You don’t !

Contrary to our competitors, that either ceased to exist, or that canceled all license keys and forced users into a subscription plan, we offer grandfathering rights to all users of mccPILOTLOG ! You can now migrate your lifetime license from mccPILOTLOG to CrewLounge PILOTLOG with a one-time contribution ! Buy 3 years and get Lifetime ! No subscription, no extra charges ! We will also pay the VAT for you !

That’s true ! All pilots with a lifetime license for mccPILOTLOG can now transfer their license to the new CrewLounge PILOTLOG application and be excluded from subscriptions, for lifetime! This offer is limited in time !

As a bonus, you receive a free 1-year license for the popular calendar app CrewLounge CONNECT (value 12.00 EUR) ! And, as an extra bonus, all PRO users (mccPILOTLOG) can now free upgrade to ENT (CrewLounge PILOTLOG) without being charged extra !

So, here is our offer :

• purchase 3 years of the new CrewLounge PILOTLOG software (*)
• get 10% immediate discount (for 3-year orders)
• get another 20% discount (that is, we will pay the VAT applicable to your country)
• transfer your Lifetime license to CrewLounge PILOTLOG (be excluded from subscriptions)
• upgrade to a higher Edition ENT or the new ENT+ (even if you are on PRO today)
• get 1 year free use of our popular roster app CrewLounge CONNECT

This is a temporary offer, we hold the right to terminate this offer at any time !

(*) Pilots that purchased mccPILOTLOG in 2019, can upgrade with paying only 1-year subscription to CrewLounge AERO.”

Essentially, the lifetime software I just purchased will not be updated any more. Therefore, the airline interface will not be fixed. In other words, my software is now useless to me.

But wait, I checked out their upgrade offer and found that I will need to pay for 3 years up front to get the lifetime subscription that I already paid for 5 months ago. The price is 2.99 EUR/month or about $3.35/month as of today. A total of about $120.00. Believe it or not, I actually considered just paying the money and moving on with my life. So I downloaded the trial version of the new CrewLounge Pilot Log, imported my data and tried to download my schedule with the airline interface. Of course – it doesn’t work.

Overall, my experience with this company is extremely negative. I would not recommend MCC Pilot Log or CrewLounge Pilot Log. You will be disappointed and will end up having to pay for a real logbook program from a reputable company. Good luck folks. Learning is a change in behavior as a result of experience.