Converting from a thick Paper Logbook to an Electronic Logbook doesn’t mean you have to spend hours manually typing in years of flying. There are easier ways to start benefiting from an Electronic Pilot Logbook.
Carry In Totals
Think of this as “See Logbook #2” and your second logbook just happens to be electronic.
Pilot Partner has a Carry in Totals feature. This allows you to enter your totals from your paper logbook and then start logging new flights electronically. You can optionally even continue to log in your Paper Logbook at the same time. With Carry in Totals you can have accurate totals in your electronic pilot logbook in minutes.
The following Carry In Totals are the most popular and easiest to get:
- Total Time
- PIC
- SEL, MEL, SES, MES, Helicopter, Glider
- Complex, High Performance, Tail Wheel
- HOOD
- IMC/Actual Instrument
- Cross Country
- Night
All of these totals are found at the bottom of your paper logbook. But there are others that some pilots are interested in carrying over, but they may require more work for you to total from you paper logbook. They include:
- Total time in a Specific Aircraft Type
- Total time in a Specific Tail Number
- Total Number of Landings (Day/Night)
- Total Number of Approaches
Pilot Partner will allow you to enter these totals if you want to. In our experience must paper logbooks do a poor job tracking these. Just remember, it is optional to track these in Pilot Partner and you can always start off with out entering the carry in totals and go back later and update them.
Draw Backs of Carry In Totals
Every good thing comes with some draw backs. We find that the draw backs of Carry In Totals are so small that most pilots will be happy with the results and never worry about them. But whether using Carry In Totals permanently or just temporally until you have the time to enter all of your actual flights one by one, you should be aware of what the impact is.
When you are using Carry In Totals consider the following:
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Insurance Report with Carry In Totals Carry In Totals do not count towards Currency. Your Day/Night Passenger Currency, IFR Currency, Flight Review, etc will not count anything in your Carry In Totals.
- Reports don’t always work with Carry In Totals. Take our Insurance Report and our Private Pilot Progression report. We do our best job to include carry in totals where it makes sense. But anything time based (last 90 Days, last year) do not include carry in totals. This is because your carry in totals do not include any dates with them. In our reports, we note the fields that include carry in totals and the fields that do not. This helps you understand the numbers you are seeing. If you compare totals from a column that includes Carry In Totals to one that does not, you will see that things do not always add up. This is the major draw back of Carry In Totals. If you entered all of your flights one by one, all the reports total up perfectly.
Best Practices for using Carry In Totals
To make entering your Carry In Totals as easy as possible we recommend you do the following:
- Choose where in your paper logbook that you want to start logging electronically. Don’t just start randomly logging flights in your new eLogbook. Make the 1st flight that is in your Pilot Partner Electronic Logbook match up to the start of a new page in your paper logbook. Assuming you are keeping track of the totals at the bottom of each page in your paper logbook, you can simply take the totals from the bottom of the page and enter them into Pilot Partner Carry in Totals
- Think about the Currency Items that mater to you. Consider going back several pages in your paper logbook and manually enter each flight one by one. Go back far enough to include the flights that make you current for the things you car about. Normally this includes Day/Night Passenger Currency and IFR Currency. Sometimes you may want to go all the way back to your last flight review.
- If you are in training for Private Pilot or Instrument Rating, consider manually entering all of your flights related to the rating you are seeking. This will make the Pilot Partner Progression reports more accurate and useful to you.
About Pilot Partner
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