I’ve been flipping through my logbooks lately, looking for something I now believe I won’t find.
Pity.
And today, more than three decades after my first logbook entry, I see why.
The remarks I made on a given flight — if I made any — are woefully inadequate.
On Jan. 1, 1988, I flew for an hour in our Cessna 172XP — N14WF — from our airpark home at Shady Acres on a local flight. My remarks? “took people for rides.” No capitalization, no punctuation. All these years later I’m left to wonder, who I took “for rides.”
Ugh.
And yet, the template for a richly detailed logbook exists. For me it appeared on the second page of my logbook, of all places.
My instructor, Scott Gardiner, used all the rows on the two page spread to write my “FIRST AIRPLANE SOLO!!!”
All these years later I can actually read what he wrote. Not so with my other instructors. Space was apparently at a premium. Who knew?
In reality, it is sad. There are so many memories I have from flying, and yet few of them are documented in my logbooks.
They will slowly morph into whatever 30-plus year old memories become.
When I page through my second logbook, I find a tad more detail in the latter years.
I’ve left the folly of youth behind, somewhat, and have started to more fully document those precious flights. I’ve started using last names of people I fly with.
Well, except for my last entry.
“Nice flt w/S. Left rear window blew out on final.”
Hopefully I’ll never forget that “w/ S” means “with Savannah” who happens to be my oldest daughter.
The left rear window failure is a story for another day, perhaps.
I’ve since added more detail to that log entry so I don’t have to work my memory so hard.
Like so many, I’m a work in progress.
When making logbook notes, give a thought to posterity.
For decades I’ve remembered my father taking me for a ride in an Ercoupe. Made a big impression on me. He had been a B-17 and B-24 pilot, and after the war ran what we now call an FBO with his brother. He’d given me numerous plane rides before the Ercoupe, in fabric-covered high-wing planes where I usually sat in tandem behind my father.
The Ercoupe was SO different, in so many ways. It’s easy to name half a dozen major differences, beginning with no tailwheel and walking ON the wing instead of under it. Really made a big impression. I could go on, but anyone reading this note knows what I mean, or should.
Anyway, my father died a few years ago, and my mother eventually gave me his log books. I expected to find my name in the “Remarks” sections, but no…. Almost all the lines were devoid of remarks. Half of them didn’t even list the plane’s “certificate number”. I’d had thoughts of tracking down planes he’d flown back then, especially the flights I’d been with him, but no….
At least the dates were there, and the “make of aircraft”. I found five Ercoupe flights logged over a six-week period. I’ll never know which one it was, but I’d like to think it was the last one, on my fourth birthday – June 16, 1948.
When you’re making a logbook entry, think about who else might be looking at it some day in the distant future, and what they’d like to know about that flight.
Great article. I can’t tell you how many logbooks I went to sign – only to feel compelled to ‘color within the lines’ of that tiny one-line box.
One of the best things I ever saw – and changed the way I thought of logbooks – was an early student who was also an artist. Instead of just making a one-line entry – he used an entire two-page spread to draw an image of how he saw that flight….in full color. I’d 30 years later – I’d love to see his set of logbooks now….
I totally sympathize. My first logbook is woefully negligent on remarks as well. My flight engineer logbook is worse, 10 years of military transport flying, including combat support operations, and very few comments… I’ve gotten better with the advent of electronic logs, which I’ve been using for about 10 years.
Pictures are worth more than some terse logbook entry. Take them and stash them.
One of the nice advantages of the electronic log books is the ability to add files. Not just any files – PHOTO files. 🙂 Every time I take someone up for a flight, I slip in a chance to take a few pictures and then include them in my electronic log book. It’s a great addition to the line items mentioned here. I have my dad’s log book and it’s a bit of the same mundane stuff. Although I know for certain a few of the rides I was on as a newborn. 🙂
Yabbit … when I started flying, the only way to add a picture “file” would have been to take a pic with my Brownie F camera, have the 120 film developed at Walgreens and stick it into a scrapbook somehow annotated to be related to a specific flight !! The SX70 didn’t come along until later … 🙂 And the only computer I knew anything about was the IBM 1620.
Fortunately, I always put the first and last initial of every passenger I ever carried in my logs. The bad news … I can’t remember their names, either. So — at best — I have a passenger count.
Nowadays, I have a VIRB controlled by my Aera660 on top of the glare shield pointed aft and keep a video record. We’ve come a long way!
Young new pilots … are ya paying attention here ?
Converting my paper logs to electronic was a pain but I typed in all the notes and got to relive flights from 40 years ago. I gained an appreciation for them and my current notes are much more verbose. I’ve been using the attachment feature for endorsement/sign-off signatures but not photos. That’s a great idea. I fly a lot of formation and often get pics of that. Always learning. Thanks.