MyFlightbook Frequently Asked Questions

Below are some commonly asked questions about MyFlightbook. Contact us if your question is not answered here.

General

Can I bulk edit my flights?

Link to this FAQ

Yes.

  1. Choose "Download" from the Logbook tab.
  2. Download the CSV version of your logbook.
  3. Open the CSV in Excel or your favorite spreadsheet
  4. (Optional but encouraged): delete any rows from the CSV file that correspond to flights you are not changing.  This will both improve performance and reduce the possibility of inadvertent edits.
  5. Make your edits.  Be sure to do this only in columns that are described here; the sheet that you are working from includes some columns that are for information only ("Flight Properties", the hh:mm formatted time fields, and a few other fields) and will be ignored on re-import. 
  6. IF YOU HAVE any all-numeric tail numbers, double check that the spreadsheet hasn't re-formatted these as dates or to remove leading zeros!
  7. Save the file as CSV (Excel will go out of your way to try to convince you not to do this, but it has to be CSV)
  8. Re-import the file, checking that each flight gets an "update" icon and NOT an "add" icon .  If you see an "add" icon, STOP, or you will get duplicate flights!
The critical thing here is that you start from a file that you download (step 2 above), do NOT start with a fresh file. The reason is that when you download the CSV, it will add a column called "FlightID" which is the unique identifier (assigned by MyFlightbook - you can't assign this!) for each flight. When you re-import, the FlightID enables the imported flight to match to an existing flight.  Without the FlightID, import will create new flights, which will lead to duplicates.

Can I merge flights?

Link to this FAQ
Yes, there are two ways, depending on what you want to do.

If you are trying to merge two or more flights together, you can use this tool to accomplish it.  Do be aware that the act of merging is inherently lossy and there is no "undo", so use at your own risk.

If all you want to do is to merge multiple telemetry files, you can do that here.  The resulting telemetry will be GPX, so it may not include all of the data that you entered, but it will preserve the flight path.  Since this doesn't touch your logbook, there is no risk of data loss.

Excel download isn't displaying dates correctly

Link to this FAQ

If you have a language/country setting that is outside of US-English, There is a bug in Excel where it doesn't send your language/locale information to the site.  When you refresh, therefore, it defaults to US-English conventions (including displaying dates in month/day/year format, instead of whatever date format is appropriate for your locale.) 

There is a workaround, although it's a bit of a hack:

  • Open the file in Excel
  • Right click in the data area and select "Edit Query"
  • At the end of the "Address" line, add &loc=xx-yy where xx-yy is your preferred language and country.  Type it exactly like that - e.g., &loc=en-ca for Canadian English.  (You can generally find the code you need by exploring your browser's "Language" settings, or contact us and we'll be happy to help.)
  • Click "Import". You should be prompted for your email and password.

Excel refresh isn't working

Link to this FAQ
If you are using the Excel download option (which allows you to download a sheet of your logbook once and then refresh your flights from within Excel) and it doesn't work, one thing is to consider whether you have special characters such as "?", "#", or "&" in your password.  This option sends your password (over an encrypted connection!) to the server to authenticate you (keeping your data yours!). 

Unfortunately, Excel doesn't properly encode these characters when requesting data from the server, so it reports an error.

Of course, you could change your password, but that's not an ideal solution. 

A better workaround is to substitute the "percent-encoded" version of the reserved characters when Excel prompts you to type your password.  There are tools on the web (e.g., https://www.urlencoder.org/) that can do this for you.

For example, "&" would be replaced with "%26".

You can tell Excel to remember your password so that you don't have to do this substitution a separate time.

How can I get more HH:MM columns in the CSV download?

Link to this FAQ
While much can be done in Excel by simply applying a format to a number, hours:minutes is not something that is well supported. As a result, the decimal version of columns must be present and any columns in hh:mm format must duplicate those columns. I have only done a few column in hh:mm just to keep the number of columns from exploding.

However, that said, it is quite easy to create an HH:MM column next to a decimal column. If cell A1 has a decimal number like, say, “6.2”, you can set B1 to =TRUNC(A1) & ":" & TEXT(ROUND((A1-TRUNC(A1)) * 60, 0), "00") and it will display the value in A1 in HH:MM format (6:12, in this case). You can add whatever additional columns you like in HH:MM format using this technique.

Do be careful, though, with trying to do math in Excel using HH:MM. Excel treats HH:MM as a time of day, not hours and minutes. So, for example, if you try to add 14:12 to 10:50, it gives you 1:02 rather than 25:02. You should do all math with the decimal fields, and then use the technique above to format the results.

How do I change the date format?

Link to this FAQ
If you are using the website, the date format (e.g., m/d/y or d/m/y) is determined by your browser's locale/region settings (which, in turn, usually default to the locale/region for your operating system).  So, for example, en-us (English with US settings), en-ca (English with Canadian settings), and en-gb (English with UK settings) will all display in English but will display dates in a format appropriate for the respective locale.

The mobile apps work in the same manner, except that they key directly off of the device's locale/region.

See this post for more information about how to change your locale settings.

How do you decide what to add as flight properties?

Link to this FAQ

You can read more detail about how properties work here.  In the interests of keeping the list of properties from exploding (it's already over 600 properties!) we generally try to add properties that meet one of the following criteria:

  • It is something that gets totaled. E.g., Number of ILS approaches, carrier landings, or hours spent in a particular role would fall into this category.
  • It is something that needs to be identified programmatically for things like currency computation. Examples of this include flight reviews or new ratings or various night-vision properties.
  • It is something that someone would typically use on multiple flights and where it thus makes sense to have a standardized way to record it and search for it. Pay rate, soft-field landings, or First Time to an Airport would fall into this category.

Most other things - e.g., introduction to a particular procedure - are best handled as simple comments in the flight. MyFlightbook does not try to cover all elements of a given curriculum/syllabus.

If you believe that you have something that should be included as a flight property, please contact us.

How do you make money with MyFlightbook if it's free?

Link to this FAQ
The short answer is that we don't try to make money with MyFlightbook.  It's something we do for fun, and to give back to the pilot community.

We do gratefully accept donations (visit "Donations" under the Profile tab), and thankfully enough of you make donations to cover most of our out-of-pocket expenses.  And we've reserved a few features as "thank-you" gifts for people who donate.  But donating is entirely voluntary; you can use the service for free.

Getting Started

Are there any tutorials for using MyFlightbook?

Link to this FAQ
I'm slowly adding tutorials on YouTube.  Please check them out!  Currently available tutorials include the following:

Getting Started:
Signing flights and instruction:
Mobile apps:
Misc.:

Can I bulk import telemetry (GPX, KML, etc.) to my flights?

Link to this FAQ
Yes!  There is a tool here that will let you bulk-upload your telemetry and match them to existing flights based on the date and location of the flight.

I have lots of hours - is there an easy way to import them into MyFlightbook?

Link to this FAQ

MyFlightbook supports bulk-import of flights and of aircraft from a "CSV" file format.

Go to the Import Flights page and you can see the details for how to do this. It is basically a three step process:

  1. First, make sure your aircraft are in the system. Each flight in MyFlightbook must be associated with an aircraft, which is referenced by tailnumber.
  2. Then, put your flights into a CSV spreadsheet.
  3. Finally, you can preview the import of the data, and see any potential errors or issues before you upload the data for real.

I have lots of hours on paper, is there an easy way to set my starting totals?

Link to this FAQ

MyFlightbook doesn't have fixed pre-defined categories of what get totaled; it is all dynamically generated from the type of flights that were flown and the aircraft in which the flights were flown. So what I recommend people do is create one or more "catch-up" flights to capture these totals.

MyFlightbook now has functionality to help you create these flights. Click on the "Logbook Tab" and then "Starting Totals", or click here.  There's a video tutorial on this process here.

I imported my flights twice and now I have two copies of each flight.

Link to this FAQ

When you import flights into MyFlightbook, they are all treated as new flights*. So if you import multiple times, you can get duplicate flights.

If this happens, you can bulk delete your flights from the Account section of your profile.

*If, however, you start from a spreadsheet that you download from MyFlightbook, each flight will include a "FlightID" column. This value is assigned by the MyFlightbook server (do not assign it yourself!) and uniquely identifies each flight. If a flight on a spreadsheet that you import has a FlightID column, and you already have a flight in your logbook with that ID, then that entry in the spreadsheet will update the existing flight in your logbook rather than creating a new flight. You can use this for bulk-edit of your logbook, if necessary.

I tried to import a spreadsheet but it tells me I have no "Date" column

Link to this FAQ

Usually this is one of three things:

  • You are uploading an Excel spreadsheet in its native format (.XLS or .XLSX); verify that you have saved it in CSV format.
  • You have one or more rows before the row containing column headers.  The column headers MUST be in the first row.
  • Your spreadsheet was saved using an operating system locale that uses a semicolon (";") as a list separator instead of a comma (","), but your browser is using a locale setting that uses a comma (or vice versa).  MyFlightbook keys off of the browser's setting.  If this is the case, see this post for how to set your browser's locale settings to match the one used by the operating system.

If none of these work for you, please contact us and we can usually help get things into shape.

Important tips for easy flight import.

Link to this FAQ
  • You will preview your data before anything is imported.  Don't be afraid to upload what you have and see how it looks.

  • The order of the columns does not matter, but every column must have a unique header, and no header can be blank.

  • If a flight does not have data for a given column, that’s fine, just leave it blank; it will be assigned a default value, unless the data is required.

  • Excel will often try to convince you not to use CSV format.  Save it in CSV anyhow, ideally using the file format “CSV UTF-8” (especially if you have non-English text).

  • Flights are matched to aircraft by the full tailnumber, so be sure to include your country-code prefix (e.g., "N" for US-registered aircraft) - on each aircraft and in each flight that references it. You can use "SIM" for a training device (you'll still have to identify the certification level and model to be used) or "#" for an "anonymous" aircraft. (e.g., for a C-172 without specifying a particular registration).  Adding a “Model” column will help MyFlightbook suggest a proper model to use for a sim or an anonymous aircraft.

  • If you need to import a 2nd time, please follow the instructions for bulk-editing in the FAQ or else you will get duplicate flights.  If you do accidentally get duplicates, you can bulk delete your flights from the Account section of your profile.

  • MyFlightbook can now import data that is exported from other logbooks such as ForeFlight or LogTen Pro with minimal manipulation on your part.  These programs both enable custom fields, however.  In the spreadsheet to be imported, the headers for these are in the form "flight_customxxx" for LogTen Pro, or a data type in brackets followed by the name of the field (e.g., "[Hours]Night Vision" or "[Text]My Custom Text Field") for Foreflight.  Since these fields are, by definition, defined by you and thus not standardized, MyFlightbook doesn't know how to interpret them.  If you rename them according to the appropriate matching name, it can be imported properly.

  • Importing from CrewTrac, or other apps that abbreviate tail numbers: MyFlightbook now can read CrewTrac data.  However, CrewTrac often abbreviates aircraft identifiers.  If this is the case, you will want to add "aliases" for each of the aircraft you want to import.  To do this, add a tag to the private notes for the target aircraft in the form "#ALTxxx#", where "xxx" is the alias.  For example, if you fly N123XY and CrewTrac reports that simply as "123", then in the private notes for N123XY, you'll want to add "#ALT123#" to indicate that "123" means "N123XY".

  • If you get an error about no Date column being found, see this FAQ entry.

  • MyFlightbook now supports import of schedules from Leon.  If your company uses Leon, go to this page to set up access; you can then import flights from the Import page.

  • All times MUST be in UTC in order to do any math such as night computation.  However, there is now an option to attempt conversion from local time to UTC on import.  This is most useful for airline schedules that may use airport local time.  MyFlightbook will attempt to use the latitude/longitude of the airports and the date of flight to compute UTC equivalent of local times.  This is, however, a fragile process so use with care.  Please read the blog post about how - and under what circumstances - this is performed and how it can fail.

Accounts

How can I delete my account?

Link to this FAQ
Well, of course, our question is "why do you want to delete your account?" (and seriously, we'd love any feedback), but if you go to "Accounts" under the "Profile" tab, you'll see a big red button that will delete your account.  Or, contact us and we'd be happy to take care of this for you.

Why do I need an account?

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook stores your information in the cloud. If you use a mobile device such as an iPhone, iPad, or Android, your account provides access to your account and limits that access to you. When you save a flight from a phone, it is actually saving it in the cloud using your MyFlightbook account.

Aircraft

How can I choose which image is displayed for an aircraft?

Link to this FAQ
Aircraft may have multiple images.  Aircraft are shared amongst users, so PLEASE DO NOT DELETE IMAGES THAT YOU DIDN'T UPLOAD unless they are inappropriate (e.g., copyright violation, pornography, not of an aircraft, etc.)

You can select which image is used by default for an aircraft by using the website:
  • Go to Aircraft->My Aircraft
  • Click on the aircraft's tail number
  • Next to each image, you will see a star icon.  Click the star next to the image you want to display by default
  • If you are using the iOS or Android app, you'll want to refresh your aircraft list.

How can I delete or update an aircraft?

Link to this FAQ
If you click on the Aircraft tab on the website, you can see a list of the aircraft that you fly. Click on the tailnumber of the aircraft and you can edit the details for the aircraft. You can delete the aircraft if you click on the red "x" on the aircraft's row on the page, but this will only work if you have no flights that use the aircraft.

How do I change the tail number for an aircraft?

Link to this FAQ
Perhaps you had a typo in the tail number for an aircraft, or for some other reason wish to change it.  

Aircraft on MyFlightbook are shared amongst users, so changing the tail number is disallowed.  Instead, you can follow these steps:
  1. Create a new aircraft with the desired tail number
  2. Then, migrate your flights from the old to the new by using the "Migrate flights to another aircraft" option in the drop-menu next to the aircraft in the "My Aircraft" page on the website.  You probably want to check the option that removes the old (incorrect) aircraft from your account in the process.
Note that if your airframe gets a new tail number, you should treat that in MyFlightbook as if it were an entirely separate aircraft.

How do I handle amphibs and planes that are part time on floats?

Link to this FAQ
Please see my blog entry on this topic.

I added an aircraft, but it changed the model I specified. Why?

Link to this FAQ

Aircraft on MyFlightbook are shared among pilots. When you enter an aircraft with a tailnumber that is already in the system, the model that you specify for the aircraft is ignored in favor of the one already in use, on the assumption that the other pilots probably have it right. This ensures, among other things, that maintenance updates recorded by one pilot are reflected for another.

But if you go and edit the aircraft, that is treated as an affirmative "Hey, I MEANT for it to be model x." and the aircraft is updated accordingly.  The system looks at the edit you make and determines if it is a major or a minor change.  A major change would be, for example, changing a C-172 to a Boeing 737; a minor change would be editing a C-172P to be a C-172N.  For minor changes, the underlying aircraft is edited.  For major changes, the aircraft is cloned and you are put into the new version. 

When this happens, ALL of the pilots flying that aircraft receive a notification of the change, as do the administrators for the service, so that it can be reviewed.

If you have any questions, by all means please  contact us.

I fly lots of aircraft that are the same model (e.g., an airline pilot).

Link to this FAQ
If you fly lots of aircraft from day to day, it can be cumbersome to enter the registration for each one.  Instead, you can add a single "anonymous" aircraft.  E.g., an anonymous Boeing 737.  This "aircraft" is treated as a generic instance of that model, so a flight logged in an anonymous Boeing 737 is then treated as multi-engine/turbine/etc.

You can then record the actual registration of the aircraft in one of the following ways:
  • Put it in the comments for the flight
  • Use the Nose Number property
  • Use the Flight Number property (though this is typically an airline assigned number, not the tail number)
  • Use the Aircraft Registration number.
The advantage to using one of the 3 property options above is that the system remembers previously used values, enabling autocomplete for quick entry on subsequent flights.

I have too many aircraft in my list - can I remove aircraft I no longer fly?

Link to this FAQ
Aircraft lists can get quite long and cluttered, making selection of an aircraft for a flight cumbersome.  You can remove aircraft that you no longer fly from the list of aircraft available for a flight.

If you're using the web, go to your aircraft list and click on the downward-facing chevron to the right of the aircraft you don't fly any more.  You'll see a pop-up menu.  Uncheck the box that says "Active" and the aircraft will be removed from the list of aircraft for new flights.

On the mobile apps, go to your aircraft list, tap on the old aircraft, uncheck "Show this aircraft for new flights", and tap "Update" to save your changes.

Flights in these aircraft will be preserved, but the inactive aircraft will be removed from the options for new flights.

Tips for editing aircraft

Link to this FAQ
Each aircraft is shared amongst the pilots who have added it to their accounts or recorded flights in it.  (See here for more information about why).

As such, if you edit an aircraft's model, it will change the aircraft for all of those pilots and they will each receive an email notification of the change.  For this reason, we ask that you follow these guidelines when changing an aircraft's model:
  • If there is a "Registration" link shown on the aircraft details page, use it to research the model.
  • Please use a specific model name.  E.g., "C-172 R" is preferred to "C-172".  Similar models are generally grouped by ICAO code rather than by specific model name.
More information about editing an aircraft's model can be found here.

If you have any questions about what to do with a given aircraft, don't hesitate to use the Contact Us link.

Airports and Mapping

How do I include a VOR/NDB/etc. in my route of flight?

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook is designed to be a logbook, not a flight planner. This has two implications: (a) acronyms are biased towards airports, and (b) obsolete airport codes are kept in the database so that older flights will still (hopefully) display correctly on a map (at least until the airport code is reused for another airport, which does happen on occasion).

So a code like "BRV" will normally resolve to an airport (Bremerhaven, Germany, in this case). But if you want to include the Brooke VOR (BRV) in your route, simply prepend "@" to the code, like this: "@BRV". The "@" tells MyFlightbook to bias towards a navigation aid rather than an airport.

You can also create an arbitrary airspace fix using the "@" prefix followed by a positive latitude, N or S to indicate north or south, then a positive longitude and E or W to indicate east or west.  E.g., @40.69N74.045W is the Statue of Liberty, and @33.857S151.215E is the Sydney Opera House.

How do I log airports?

Link to this FAQ
The short answer is: any way you like.  MyFlightbook breaks up what you put in the Route field at anything that is not a letter or a number, so you can use spaces or dashes or anything you like to separate airports.

MyFlightbook supports ICAO, IATA, and FAA codes.  So London Heathrow can be either LHR (IATA) or EGLL (ICAO).  In the US, the FAA code and the ICAO code for an airport are usually identical except for a leading "K", so the "K" is generally optional.  E.g., San Francisco can be either "KSFO" or "SFO".  Maui airport, though, which is OGG in both FAA and IATA, is actually PHOG in ICAO (not KOGG), but KOGG will work as a synonym.

As a logbook rather than a flight planner, MyFlightbook has a strong bias towards airports over navaids.  This means that it has a much more comprehensive set of airports (including many airports that are no longer in existence, or have new codes alongside their old codes) than navaids, but navaids are still in the system.  So, for example, "SFO" means San Francisco International Airport, not the SFO VOR.  You can, however, explicitly direct MyFlightbook to use the navaid by using an "@" prefix.  E.g., "@SFO" means the San Francisco VOR.

Other tips:
  • You can do an ad-hoc fix by doing @(Latitude)(N/S)(Longitude)(E/W). E.g., @40.69N74.045W is the Statue of Liberty, and @33.857S151.215E is the Sydney Opera House.  In the mobile apps, you can press and hold the "+" button next to the route field to generate this based on your current position
  • "=>" as a path separator has a special meaning: this says to stop connecting the dots.  E.g., A-B-C-D means you departed A, then flew to B, then to C, then to D, and they will all be connected.  But A-B=>C-D means "You departed A and flew to B.  Somehow, you then departed C and flew to D (i.e., there is a gap between B and C)."
  • Use "!" as a prefix or suffix when searching for airports.  E.g., "ABC" means "flight had ABC in the route," but  "!ABC" means "Departed from ABC" (i.e., route began with "ABC") and "ABC!" means "Arrived at ABC" (route ended with "ABC").

My airport isn't in your database

Link to this FAQ
You can add/edit airports on the site by clicking the Airports tab, then "Add/Edit" airports on the left-hand side.

Do note that you cannot edit an airport that already exists in the database or was created by another user.

Developers

Can my website or app work with MyFlightbook?

Link to this FAQ
Yes.  MyFlightbook uses the oAuth2 protocol, which allows a user to grant permissions for a 3rd party site to perform various actions on MyFlightbook without revealing their username or password to the 3rd party site.  (This is the same way that MyFlightbook can work with Dropbox or Google Drive without getting your passwords to those services).  See the web service wiki for more information, or contact us; we're always happy to help.  When you're ready to get started, visit our developer page to get an oAuth client set up.

I'm a developer - is there any way to help?

Link to this FAQ
Yes.MyFlightbook is now open source.

Tools for developers?

Link to this FAQ
Check out the playpen; there are a variety of rough-cut tools there (as well as some interesting functionality that never quite "made the cut" for deployment).

Logging Time

Currency Tips

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook computes all of the currencies that it can based on the flying that it finds in your logbook.  Interestingly, there is not an up-front list, since currency in some cases depends on the model of aircraft being flown, which is a potentially unbounded list).  You can read lots of gory details about the computation here, but here are some useful tips:
  • All possibly relevant currencies are computed, and then those for which you have never been current are pruned.  So, for example, if you have had a single lesson in a helicopter in which you did one landing, helicopter passenger currency will not be shown.
  • Sometimes currencies lapse and it's important that we know, in order to regain currency, but sometimes they lapse because we're no longer doing a certain type of flying.  You can declutter by removing long-expired currencies from view.
  • In Profile->Preferences, you can choose from a set of different regulatory requirements for currency
  • If you need to, you can create your own custom currency rules as well.
  • Maintenance will show in currency for aircraft where you have edited the maintenance record
  • You can also create Deadlines (i.e., which depend only on the passage of time, not on your flying experience), which also show in currency.  Some deadlines (flight review, medical expiration) are computed for you automatically.

Does MyFlightbook track duty time per FAR 117?

Link to this FAQ
Yes.  See the blog for details.

How can I log CFI or SIC Time?

Link to this FAQ
Since CFI time and SIC time are the sorts of things that you either log on lots of flights or on none, these fields are not shown by default (in order to reduce clutter). But they are available!

Simply click on the Profile above, then click "Preferences" and you will see an option to display these fields.

How can I log high-performance/tailwheel/turbine/complex time?

Link to this FAQ

You do not need to explicitly record high-performance/tailwheel/turbine/complex time in MyFlightbook. Since this is an attribute of an airplane (more accurately, of an aircraft make/model) used in a flight, it is implicit in that flight.

So, for example, simply recording time in, say, a Bonanza will add to your high-performance and complex time, and recording time in a Stinson will add to your tailwheel time.

How can I record a combination property?

Link to this FAQ
I can add new properties very quickly to MyFlightbook. I tend, however, to strongly resist combination properties because they can lead to inconsistency and weirdness. There are two kinds of combination properties in particular that I resist:
  1. Conflating an aircraft property with a flight property (e.g., tailwheel time and solo time)
  2. Conflating two flight properties (such as PIC/Cross-Country time)
I.e., I don't like to have a way to explicitly record something that can be computed. The issue is precisely that fact: if it can be computed, then having you enter it is a waste of your time if you do it correctly (e.g., making you enter 2 hours of multi-engine time when you flew 2 hours in a Seneca.), and it's ambiguous if you do it incorrectly.  E.g., what does it mean for purposes of your multi-engine time if you log 1 hour of multi-engine time but 2 hours of PIC time or total time in the Seneca? What does it mean if you forget to log multi-time in the Seneca flight? For things like PIC and Cross-Country (XC), a little more interpretation is required for the computation, but the issues are the same. Fortunately, usually one of the two properties (such as XC in this case) is a "whole flight" property (e.g., a 2 hour flight generally has to have 2 hours of XC) so the formula MIN(PIC, XC) can pretty accurately capture how much PIC-XC time that flight contributed. It's an approximation - and thus imperfect - but in practice I think the error from this approximation is less than the error from forgetting to record all of the possible combinations of attributes for a given flight.

A final reason I don't like combination properties is that the combinatorics can get huge quickly. If I can combine PIC, SIC, CFI, Solo, and Total time, for example, with just 10 other properties (Cross Country, Night, etc.) that would be 50 properties right there.  Bleah.

How can I record my multi-engine (or helicopter or other) checkride?

Link to this FAQ

Checkrides have two dimensions: there's the level/privileges of the rating (recreational/sport/private/commercial/instrument/ATP/CFI/CFII/new type) and there's the category/class/(type) for which the checkride confers the rating.

To be more precise, there really isn't anything called a "multi-engine checkride" (or "helicopter checkride" or "seaplane checkride", etc.). Technically, you have a private pilot, commercial, or similar checkride which was applicable to multi-engine aircraft.

MyFlightbook very deliberately keeps it to just the first dimension, if only because the # of potential ratings if you enumerate them on both dimensions explodes rather quickly (and when you factor in type ratings, it is essentially unbounded).

Besides, it's generally redundant to specify this anyhow: if one performas a private pilot checkride in a multi-engine airplane, it's pretty clear from just that data that it was a "multi-engine checkride."

There are three properties from which you might want to choose to indicate such a flight, though.  You can add these in any combination you like (and, of course, supplement with comments):

  1. "Checkride - New Rating" - this indicates that you are getting a new rating.  The fact that it was in a multi-engine aircraft (or helicopter or ...) indicates that the rating applies to that kind of aircraft.
  2. "Checkride - Private Pilot" or "Checkride - Commercial" or similar.  This is just a bit more specific than "new rating"
  3. "Checkride - New Category/Class/Type" - this makes it clear that the category/class/(type) is also new to you.  Again, the specific category/class/type is implicit in the category/class/type of the checkride aircraft.

How can I record Solo Cross-Country, Dual Cross-Country, or PIC-Cross-Country?

Link to this FAQ

The short answer is to simply record these fields discretely; MyFlightbook can compute the combined times.

Look in the 8710 form to see an example of how this is computed.

Since a flight is generally a cross-country flight or not a cross-country flight (indicated by time being recorded in the cross country field), the minimum of the (cross country time, PIC time) is used to determine PIC Cross-country time for that flight (and analogously for solo or dual cross-country time). The PIC (or solo/dual) time for a flight might be less than the whole time for the flight (for example, if flying duties are shared) which is why the minimum of the two values is used.

How do I log ground training/instruction when I didn't fly?

Link to this FAQ
Every flight on MyFlightbook requires an aircraft.  If you don't fly, though, it's no problem - just pick any aircraft and leave all of the relevant flight times zero.  That way, it won't pollute your totals or currency.

Note that there is a pseudo manufacturer "Generic" in the system; you might try using an anonymous "Generic" aircraft for these flights.  There's a model called "Ground" made by Generic that could be good for exactly this purpose.

How do I log simulator time (ATD/FTD/Simulator)?

Link to this FAQ

MyFlightbook  supports a variety of training devices.  A training device is just another aircraft that you can use for a flight.  You'll log any approaches as normal (and landings, if appropriate), and typically would then log the time in the Ground Sim field (on the main flight form).  You'll often also log some simulated instrument time as well and, for appropriately certified sims (usually full-motion) under appropriate procedures, you can actually even log total time.

So what you'll need to do is add a sim to your account.  You do this as you would any other aircraft, except that when you add it, there is an option to specify that it is training device rather than being a real-aircraft.  

MyFlightbook doesn't care about specific FAA certification levels or full motion; it just needs to know how to treat approaches and landings.  

There are 4 levels of training devices on MyFlightbook from which you can choose:
  1. Uncertified (think Microsoft Flight Simulator);
  2. ATD;
  3. FTD or Sim where you can log approaches but not landings; and
  4. Sim where you can  log landings (typically full motion "Full Flight Simulator" or FFS).

You can add the sim using the model of aircraft being simulated (e.g., Boeing 737), or using the sim manufacturers (e.g., Redbird or Frasca); which you choose is entirely up to you.

MyFlightbook will consider the designation of the training device when computing things like currency and progress towards ratings.  See the notes on currency for more information.

Tip: if you use an ATD that has "AATD" in its model name, or put the word "AATD" into the comments for a given sim session that uses an ATD, the ATD will be treated as an advanced aviation training device for purposes of computing 61.65(d) experience; otherwise, it will be treated as a basic aviation training device (BATD).

How should I log cross-country time

Link to this FAQ

The short answer is: "However you like". But there are different kinds of cross country.

For flights that simply leave the pattern, the fact that you left the pattern is implicit in the fact that the "Route of flight" field contains more than one airport. If you want to find totals for these sorts of flights, MyFlightbook lets you search for "non-local" flights, which is really what these are.  These flights count for Part 135 cross-country, so this can be a handy way to find your Part 135 cross-country totals.

For flights that are greater than 50nm from the original point of departure, use the Cross Country field. Note that the mobile apps will fill this in for you automatically if it sees any pair of airports in the route of flight that are more than 50nm apart from each other. There is an interpretation from the FAA here that gives some interesting perspective on this.

More information and more suggestions can be found in the blog.

My simulator time is being included in my totals (or SEL/MEL time). Why?

Link to this FAQ

MyFlightbook adds to your totals any flight for which you have a non-zero value in the Total Time field.  This is because for some simulators, under some circumstances, you are entitled to do so.

But in general, the rule that MyFlightbook follows is to defer to your judgment; so if you log it, the assumption is that it should count.

Stated another way, if it shouldn't count towards your total time, you should leave the Total Time field for a flight blank (0).  Typically, you would put the time of the simulator training into the "Ground Sim" field instead.

Category/class time (e.g., ASEL, AMEL, etc.) in MyFlightbook is defined as the subset of Total Time flown in that category class.  So there is, by definition, no way to include something in your totals and NOT have it count in the category/class time.  Stated another way, if you're entitled to log the 2.5 hours of full-motion Boeing 777 time as total time, then you are also entitled to log it as AMEL time (and AMEL/Boeing 777 time).

Regardless of the above, you can see your total sim time or your total real-aircraft time, by searching based on aircraft characteristics; there is an option to restrict to just sims or just real aircraft.

Note that many ratings have total time requirements and allow sim time to credit towards those minimums.  In general, MyFlightbook respects this automatically.  But if a rating expresses a requirement like "500 hours total time, of which 40 hours may be in a simulator", this does *not* say that the sim time can be logged towards total time.  Rather, the correct way to read interpret this is that (a) your total time in a real aircraft must be at least 460 hours, and (b) the total time in real aircraft plus total time in (appropriately certified) training devices must exceed 500. 

Why am I seeing my Seneca time contribute to high-performance totals?

Link to this FAQ
In Aug of 1997, the FAA's definition of high-performance changed from having more than 200hp to having an engine with more than 200hp.  This meant that some twin-engine aircraft, such as the Piper Seneca, which have two engines that are each 200hp or less (but which have more than 200hp in aggregate) went from being high-performance to no longer being high-performance as of that date. 

AOPA has commentary on this which identifies some of the models which were affected by this change.

To provide consistency with how such time would have been logged prior to the change, MyFlightbook adds time in these aircraft prior to the change to high-performance totals, but not time in the aircraft after this date.

Why aren't my landings or takeoffs counting towards my currency?

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook has a fairly large set of possible takeoffs or landings that you can log, such as carrier landings or non-towered-field takeoffs.  These are all subsets of the total number of landings/takeoffs performed on a given flight, and they can even overlap: e.g., you can record 1 short-field landing 1 soft-field landing on a flight that had just a single landing.

61.57(a)/(b), which govern recent flight experience to carry passengers, simply need to know how many times the aircraft touched earth, and (for the case of tailwheel or night) how many times it came to a full-stop.  As a result, you need to log the total number of takeoffs/landings in addition to any more specific subsets (such as above) so that MyFlightbook can correctly compute your currency.  So if you log one short field and one soft-field landing, you would still need to log 1 (or 2!) total landings.

Why does the math seem to be slightly off?

Link to this FAQ
The math isn't actually off, but the way that it's doing addition may not be obvious.  It's a result of rounding because minutes don't divide into 100 nicely.

MyFlightbook does, by default, per-minute math.  Meaning that before adding times, it rounds them to the nearest whole minute.  This is partly to make the math look right in HH:MM format, and partly unavoidable because it's only using two digits after the decimal.  It also makes sense because when we look at our phone or watch to see "what time is it" when you start/stop a flight, you're typically using whole minutes.  

Heck, many many pilots only log in 6-minute increments (i.e., 0.1 hour), and if you do that then you can stop reading right now because you will never see any math issues.

For example, imagine you do three flights that each run from 10:00am to 10:40am - i.e., 40-minute flights.  You can enter those each as "0:40" if you use HH:MM, or as "0.67" (= 2/3 of an hour) if you are using decimal.  Under the covers, it's 0.67 regardless.

Three 40 minute flights should, of course, add up to 120 minutes or 2 hours.  

Since you can't precisely store "2/3" in two decimal digits (or, to be technical, in even 100 decimal digits), these are each entered or stored as 0.67, which is actually  0.67 x 60 = 40.2 minutes.  

So if MyFlightbook did straight math, that would add up to 40.2 + 40.2 + 40.2 = 120.6, or 121 minutes, which would display as either 2:01 in HH:MM format, or as 120.6 / 60 = 2.01 in decimal!

For this reason, MyFlightbook rounds everything to a whole minute, adds those minutes, and then divides by 60 to get hours (whether in HH:MM or decimal).  So in this scenario, each entry is 40.2 minutes, which rounds to 40.  3x40 = 120 total minutes, which is precisely 2 hours, and the math works.

However, if you track your flights down to 36-second increments (i.e., 0.01 hours), there is now an option in Preferences to choose to do hundredths-of-an-hour math.
See the blog for more information

Mobile Apps

Can I use the mobile app off-line?

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook is a cloud based service, which has the benefit of being available anywhere and on a variety of devices, but it also means that access to your logbook and the analysis of it (computing totals or currency, for example) requires a connection to the Internet.  This also enables rapid bug fixes or enhancements without requiring app updates, it increases performance by greatly reducing the amount of data that needs to go back and forth, and it avoids having potentially conflicting changes made in multiple places, or the possibility of viewing out-of-date data.

The key off-line scenario, though, is when airborne, and the MyFlightbook apps are designed to work in this scenario without an Internet connection.  You can build-up a new flight entry (using autodetection to determine takeoffs/landings) and, when a flight entry is complete, if you are still off-line, you can queue it for submission later when an Internet connection is available.

How do I update or delete an aircraft?

Link to this FAQ
You can update or delete an aircraft on the website. Click the "Aircraft" tab. (You will need to sign in using the same email address and password that you use on your mobile device.)

Click the tailnumber of the aircraft to edit it, or you can delete it from within the list of aircraft.

Note that you cannot delete an aircraft that is in use in any of your flights.

I add a new flight but it doesn't show up

Link to this FAQ
Networks can be flaky things, so the apps will keep trying to submit a flight until they receive a success response from the server. But alas, the success response itself could be lost!  So if the server sees a flight that is a duplicate of an existing flight, it returns success but ignores the newly submitted flight because it's a duplicate.

Normally this is fine, but if you do multiple identical flights a day, this might bite you.  The solution is simple: distinguish the flights.  Add a sequence number to the comments, or add a departure time, or something to make it unique.  Something like a flight start or engine start time (even if rough) will also help with sub-sorting within a single day. 

My app isn't detecting takeoffs/landings - why not?

Link to this FAQ

If you use the MyFlightbook app on a mobile device, it can detect takeoffs and landings for you.

  • You must have location services on and enabled, granting permission to the MyFlightbook application to receive location updates. iOS asks for this permission when you first run the app, but if you need to double check, you can go into the Settings app, and then look under Privacy->Location Services to see if MyFlightbook has permission; Android should ask at the point that you turn on auto-detection or recording.
  • Make sure that the option to detect takeoffs and landings is turned on. In iOS, this is under "Settings" from the Profile tab, in Android this is directly on the profile page. You should check as well that the takeoff speed is set to something appropriate for your aircraft.
  • To conserve battery, MyFlightbook only does detection when a new flight is in progress. A flight is considered "in progress" if it has an engine start time and/or a flight start time, and if it does NOT have an engine end time. You can find these times under "In the cockpit" in the new flight screen.

My app won't install (iOS or Android)

Link to this FAQ
MyFlightbook is available through Apple's App Store and the Google Play store.  If you are having trouble downloading or updating:
  • Try making sure that the app is fully uninstalled if an upgrade is failing.
  • If an install (not an upgrade, or after an uninstall) is failing, this is generally an issue with the store since rather than a bug in MyFlightbook, since MyFlightbook is (by definition) not on the device in this scenario.  Please look up on the web for possible issues.
  • I have had a few reports where MyFlightbook wouldn't download through the Apple App Store, but it would if you downloaded the watch app; if you have an Apple Watch, you may give that a try.

My iPad is wifi only. Can I use (or import from) an external GPS?

Link to this FAQ
Yes.  MyFlightbook uses the iOS provided location services, so if you use an external GPS and connect it to your iPad, it should automatically be used as a GPS source.

If your GPS is capable of recording a path, you can also import it after-the-fact and MyFlightbook will create a flight from that.  You'll need to make sure that autodetection is turned on.

There is a video that shows how this works with apps like ForeFlight or external GPS units like Bad Elf.

Troubleshooting Android

Link to this FAQ
The most recent versions of the Android apps require at least Android 4.4 (KitKat) or later.

On some devices, storage permissions are required for the internal database to work correctly.  Normally, storage permissions are only required in order to access photos or videos, but on some devices this permission is required to enable the app to work with its database.

Why is the landing count wrong?

Link to this FAQ

The MyFlightbook mobile app can auto-detect take-offs and landings. It does this strictly by speed. When you exceed a particular speed (which you can set), that's a take-off. When you fall below a slightly lower speed (usually 10-15kts less than the take-off speed), that's a landing. When this happens, the nearest airport is appended to your route of flight and the landing count is incremented.

It works pretty well, but not perfectly, as it is possible to see GPS samples that include a bogus speed value. The app does filter samples to try to minimize this, but this is a tricky tuning problem, for three reasons:

  • It tries to determine landings in real-time, as GPS samples arrive. It cannot know if the current GPS sample is the last one it will receive. So, for example, if it sees a GPS sample with a 40kt speed after a sequence of 70kt speeds, it cannot know if the next sample will be 70kts (indicating a likely spurious speed), 20kts (indicating a true landing), or if there will be no more samples.
  • The app tries to catch both full-stop and touch-and-go landings. Aggressive filtering, which can reduce spurious landings, will also filter out touch-and-go landings.
  • The self-reported accuracy of each GPS sample is often better for the position than it is for the speed.

I've found the following affect the accuracy of the landing counts:

  • Adjust the takeoff/landing speeds (on iPhone/iPad, this is in the Settings app, under MyFlightbook; on other platforms, it is in-app). Picking a low speed for this will reject more bogus in-flight landings, but at the cost of likely missing touch-and-go landings. Depending on the typical flight you do, this may make sense.
  • Give the iPhone/iPad good view of the sky. Sitting on the dash will typically do much better than in your pocket or on your lap, if that is an option
  • When you switch apps, the GPS can turn off and on, which can increase the bogus samples. MyFlightbook throws away the first few samples after it wakes up for this reason, but despite this, less app switching gives better sample data.

Printing

How can I print my logbook?

Link to this FAQ
Use the website (myflightbook.com), and go to "Print View" under the "Logbook" tab. Then print using your browser's Printing command. The printed view will suppress the top form, tabs, etc.  Use your browser's Print Preview command to ensure it looks like you want it to look.

Alternatively, you can download a PDF file (from either the Print View page described above, or the Download page under the Logbook tab) that contains a more traditional-style layout following EASA FCL.050 guidelines.

How can I save my printing preferences for future use?

Link to this FAQ
Go to Logbook->Printing and click the link, select what you want to include, then click on "Open a printer-optimized view of your logbook".  Configure the settings the way that you want them, then click the "link" icon at the top ().  

The page will reload with a long URL in the address bar that encapsulates all of your settings.  You can then bookmark that to get back to it easilyi.

In print view, some pages are spilling across multiple sheets of paper

Link to this FAQ
If a page of your logbook contains a lot of information, then something has to give: something must be removed from the printed page to allow it to fit on a single printed page, or the data has to spill onto the next piece of paper.  MyFlightbook does not make decisions to exclude data on your behalf, so by default, it spills in this scenario.  Details for this are discussed here and here.

But there are a few ways you can keep things tight and avoid spillover:
  • Simplest: use "continuous" mode, which dispenses with per-page sub-totals.  Per-page subtotals are truly pointless in the electronic world (they exist only to facilitate human computation; computers don’t make math errors).  If you do that, you can ignore the remaining suggestions.
  • On the Layout tab, switch the “Make/Model/Variant Display” to ICAO only.  That will switch from, say, “C-172 S, Cessna Skyhawk SP” to simple “C172”, reducing word-wrapping in that column and giving more space for other fields, which in turn reduces word wrap in those fields.
  • You can turn off “Repeat previous page totals in subtotals for each page” – that will save a significant amount of per-page space.
  • You can also exclude some properties from display that are consuming space.
  • You can adjust margins or page size, or reduce the number of flights per page
  • Finally, if you have long comments, you can use "///" to suppress printing of them.  Everything in a comment after "///" will be displayed on screen but will not be printed.

Tips for making a printed logbook look great

Link to this FAQ
Please see my blog post on this topic.

Why are the flights per page only approximate?

Link to this FAQ

This is an approximate number of flights per page because the height of each row cannot be determined with accuracy before rendering of the entire page.

The system does try to adjust the row height based on the data a given flight contains - more data is assumed to require more height, reducing the number of flights on the containing page, but this is just an approximation. Things that contribute to "more height" include: long comments, lots of properties, images (if images are included in the print view) and signatures (if signatures are included)

Please read this blog post for some fascinating insights into why. That said, I encourage the use of "continuous" mode because it avoids all of the approximation issues while sacrificing no functionality that has any actual (vs. perceived) value.

If you want per-page subtotals and a reasonably consistent number of flights per page, there are some things that you can do to ensure that each flight takes a similar height:

  • Exclude images from the print view (and signatures too)
  • Exclude properties that aren't typically needed in a print layout (such as fuel price, for example)
  • In comments, if you use "///", everything after that will be excluded from printing. E.g., "First Solo /// Winds 090@10G15" will print out simply as "First Solo"
  • In comments, if you use "///--", it will behave as described above but will force that flight to be the first flight on a new page.

Tips & Tricks

Formatting your comments.

Link to this FAQ
Comments in flights support some simple markdown to provide for richer print/display
  • A simple link like "http://google.com" will automatically be turned into a hyperlink like http://google.com.
  • You can label a link using the syntax [Label](Link).  E.g., "[Google](http://google.com)" will turn into a hyperlink like Google.
  • Surround text with "*" to make it boldface or "_" to make it italic.  E.g., "*bold* and _italic_" will display as bold and italic.
  • You can exclude text from the printed version by using "///" (three forward slashes).  Everything from the slashes onward will be ignored in printed views.  This is useful if you want to reduce clutter in the printed version, or if you want to redact private notes from the printed version.

How can I bulk delete flights?

Link to this FAQ
If you want to delete ALL of your flights, go to Profile->Accounts->Big Red Buttons.  This is not a reversible operation, but you will be emailed a copy of your data from just prior to the flight.

You can bulk delete a subset of your flights (website only) as follows:
  • Perform a search for the flights you wish to delete
  • In the upper-left corner above the flights, next to where the number of flights that were found is displayed, is a drop-down menu.  Choose "Show All" (if not already checked).  This may be slow...
  • From the same menu, choose "Select Flights".  A checkbox will appear next to each flight in the list, allowing you to select/deselect individual flights.
  • Check the box a the top of the column of checkboxes; this will select all flights
  • From the same menu as above, choose "Delete Selected Flights"
  • From the same menu as above, if you had to check "Show All" above, switch back to viewing your logbook in pages.  (This will generally mean vastly faster performance)

How can I control the sort order for multiple flights on a single day?

Link to this FAQ
If you have multiple flights on a single day, the system has to figure out which fields to use to sub-sort.  It looks at the following, in priority order, to determine sort within a day:
  • Engine Start/Block-Out time/Flight Start (if specified)
  • Hobbs start, if specified
  • Flight ID.
The flight ID is a unique number assigned by the database (you can't change it!!!) in MyFlightbook that is monotonically increasing.  So if the flights are entered in the order in which they occurred, then this can serve as a proxy for determining the order of the flights.

So if you have multiple flights in a given day that aren't in the right order, you can enter a flight start, engine start, or hobbs start to force a sub-sort.  These don't have to be super precise, just enough that the order is what you want them to be.

How can I share my flight with others?

Link to this FAQ
If you check the box to allow others to view your flight, you can share a link to that flight.

On the website, this is the page that you see if you click on the route of flight.  If you use the menu to share to Facebook or Twitter (X), it will use this link.  On the mobile apps, view the flight to share and you can send it using the action button at the bottom of the screen (iOS) or the menu (Android).

If you share a link to the flight with someone, they will see high-level details of the flight including:

  • Your name
  • Date of flight
  • Aircraft tail number
  • Route of flight
  • Your comments
  • Any images or videos from the flight or aircraft

If you turn off the sharing attribute for the flight, then even with the link, they will see nothing more than the route of flight - nothing to identify you.

You can change this setting at any time.

How can I share my flight with others?

Link to this FAQ
If you check the box to allow others to view your flight, you can share a link to that flight.

On the website, this is the page that you see if you click on the route of flight.  If you use the menu to share to Facebook or Twitter (X), it will use this link.  On the mobile apps, view the flight to share and you can send it using the action button at the bottom of the screen (iOS) or the menu (Android).


Mobile Apps - Data Entry

Link to this FAQ
Filling in whole flights:
  • The iPhone or Android app can detect takeoffs and landings for you.  You can turn this on in "Settings."  Be sure to tap "Engine Start" when you start your flight and "Engine End" when you end, since the app will only look for takeoffs/landings when it thinks the engine might be running or a flight may be in progress.
  • On iOS, if you have a KML or GPX file from another source, you can send it to MyFlightbook, which will try to initialize a flight from it.
Shortcuts:
  • Press-and-hold on any quantity-of-time field to cross-fill from the "Total Time" field
  • Press-and-hold Total Time to get a calculator
  • Press-and-hold the "+" button next to the route field to insert an ad-hoc fix (@lat-lon format, eg., @41.34N108.53W)
  • Press-and-hold to make a property stick to the New Flight screen for easy access next time.  Press-and-hold again to un-stick it.
  • Press-and-hold on the date-of-flight to reset it to "Today" (local date), or the local date of engine/flight/block start.

My authorities want the ability to track edits to a flight. Can I do this?

Link to this FAQ
Yes.  You can turn this option on for new flights.  If you do this, then most subsequent edits made to a given flight will be tracked.

For more information, please see this blog post.

Tips for searching

Link to this FAQ

Because you are likely to report your flying based on the results of such searches, queries on MyFlightbook are highly structured in order to avoid false positives or negatives.  This is why searching is not a simple field into which you can simply type search terms like on Google.

Hopefully, the search form - while obviously more complex than a simple search field - is easy to use.  That said, there are a few techniques that can help you refine your search.

  • All searching is case insensitive and partial word searches.
  • By default, a flight must match ALL of the criteria that you specify in order to be included in the result set.  The more criteria you specify, the fewer flights will match.  But some sections of search criteria (namely flight characteristics and presence of flight properties) allow for you to specify "ANY" or "NONE" criteria.  "ANY" in this case means that any of the criteria will satisfy that section.  (If there are additional criteria specified outside of that section, then that criteria must also be met).  "NONE" works in the same way: if the specified criteria is met with NONE specified, then the flight is rejected.
  • If you search for "Local" flights, it will find any flight that has exactly one airport in the route, or that has the same airport twice.  E.g., "KSFO" or "KSFO-KSFO" are both considered local flights.  "Non-local" flights will return anything that leaves the home field.  I.e., this is basic cross-country by the 61.1 definition.
  • When searching in the "Flight visited any of these airports" field, you can use "!" as a prefix or suffix. !ABC matches flights that depart from ABC (i.e., ABC is the first airport in the route of flight), and ABC! matches flights that arrive at ABC (i.e., ABC is the last airport in the route of flight).
  • Text that you put into the *private* notes for an aircraft are included in search.  (Public notes are shared amongst pilots who fly the aircraft, and these are excluded from search).  So you can make up a tag like "#FIKI#" and put it into the private notes for each appropriate aircraft to indicate that (in this example) it is certified for flight into known icing; you can then search for "#FIKI#" and find all the flights in FIKI-certified aircraft.  Note that there's nothing magical about the hashtag ("#") prefix/suffix, it's just a handy way to avoid false-positive matches.
  • In the "Model Contains" field, you can type a partial string to match on the full name of a model (including manufacturer).  For example, if you type "Cessna" then you'll match flights in any Cessna.
  • In the "Model Contains" field, if you search for "icao:xxx", then it will only find flights in aircraft that have an exact match to xxx in the ICAO designation for the model.  E.g., "icao:b772" will match flights in a Boeing 777-200, but not in a Boeing 777-300 (which has an ICAO code of B773).
  • There is also a field where you can search for any text within the flight (route, comments, properties, etc.). This roughly follows Google conventions:
    • dog cat = must contain "dog" and must contain "cat" (but not necessarily in that order, separated by anything)
    • "dog cat" = must contains "dog cat" (inclusive of spaces)
    • dog OR cat = contains dog OR contains cat
    • -dog = must NOT contain dog
    • -"dog cat" = must NOT contain "dog cat"
    • -"dog -cat" must NOT contain "dog -cat" (i.e., the hyphen inside the quoted text is preserved, not negation)
    • -dog -cat = contains neither dog nor cat ("NOT dog AND NOT cat")
    • -dog OR cat = doesn't contain dog OR does contain cat.
  • Specify trailing dates in the free-text field. If you type "Trailing:" followed by a number followed by one of D, W, M, or CM, then this will override any other date setting and set the date to the specified number of Days (D), Weeks (W), Months (M), or Calendar Months (CM) prior to today. For example:
    • "Trailing:90d" - restricts to the 90 days leading up to today
    • "Trailing:36CM" - restricts to the 36 calendar months prior to today.  (E.g., if today is Nov 8 2020, then this will do flights on or after Nov 1 2017)
  • In text searches, you can use "?"  and "*" as wildcards to match a single character or any number of characters.  E.g., "C-1?2" will match both C-172 and C-182, and "C*182" will match both "C-182" and "C182".
  • Restrict free-text search to the comments field or the route field by using the prefix "CMT=" or "RTE=", respectively.  So, for example
        "CMT=Scrubbed"
    will find all flights where the comment consists of EXACTLY the word scrubbed, while
        "RTE=" (nothing after the "=") will find all of your flights where nothing is present in the route of flight.  Note too that the hyphen prefix described above still works, so
        "-RTE=KSFO*"
    will find flights where the route does NOT start with "KSFO", and
        "-CMT="
    will find flights where the comments are NOT empty.
  • As mentioned above, properties are included in the free-form search, along with their labels.  So you can search for flights that have or don't have a particular property using the search form, but you can also search for a particular value for a property by using its label format.  E.g., to find all flights with a student name of John Doe, search for "Student: John Doe" (include the quotes).
  • Save a query for later use.  There's a drop-down at the bottom of the search form.  Type a name into the field there, and when you execute the search it will be saved with the name you used.  To use the search next time, just click its name in the drop-down.

Too much clutter!

Link to this FAQ
There are various ways that you can customize MyFlightbook to reduce clutter.  See this blog post.

Website

Link to this FAQ
  • Type a date, a year+month, or a year in the paging area of your flights table to quickly jump to the page containing the specified time.
  • Click a column header to sort your flights by that header.  Click it again to reverse the sort.
  • Initialize a flight by uploading a GPX or KML file in the "Times and Telemetry" section for new flights.  Press "Autofill" to initialize the flight.  Autofill also works if you provide engine times and airports in the route field.
  • If you want to embed a public (shared) flight, you can add additional items to the URL for the public page: "show=" followed by the following: map, airports, details, pictures, separated by commas.  E.g., "show=map,pictures" to show only map and pictures but not details.
  • If you use the RSS feed, it is Currency by default.  Add "&t=1" to the URL to get totals instead; add "&HTML=1" to get an HTML version (rather than XML)
  • The page to view public flights uses a static map by default (cheaper to use, and most of the time has all the needed functionality), but if you want a dynamic map (that you can pan/zoom/click) add "dm=1" to the URL.
  • Add "night=yes" to force a night mode view to your session; "night=no" turns it off.  I haven't fully tested this; it's primarily for the mobile apps.
  • Use "!" as a prefix or suffix when searching for airports.  E.g., "ABC" means "flight had ABC in the route," but  "!ABC" means "Departed from ABC" (i.e., route began with "ABC") and "ABC!" means "Arrived at ABC" (route ended with "ABC").
  • Add "path=1" to the url on the Visited Airports page to draw the great-circle paths representing your flights.
  • Make up a tag like "#SCENIC" or "#NOTEWORTHY" or "#GREATBURGER" or similar and just put it into the comments for the flight to decorate it with a custom category.  There's  Nothing particularly magical about the hashtag ("#") but it helps to avoid false positives when searching.  So you can find all of your "noteworthy" flights by searching for "#NOTEWORTHY".
  • Everything in a comment after "///" will be displayed on screen but will not be printed.  Great to combine with the tag suggestion above.
  • When typing in comments, type a "[" followed by a FAR required for a rating or a training maneuver (e.g., "[61.87" or "[slip") to see auto-completions of said required maneuvers.  You can separate multiple words with a hyphen (-).  E.g., "[short-landing" to see completions for short field landings.
  • You can specify a price-per-hour in the private notes for an aircraft using the notation "#PPH:xxx#", where "xxx" is the price.  E.g., "#PPH:72.50#" means 72.50 an hour.  (Notice that - like all monetary values - this doesn't specify a particular currency; it's assumed to be in your locale's default, so in the US this would be $, in most of Europe it would be €, etc.; just be consistent.)  If you press "Autofill" (website only), for an aircraft that has a price-per-hour then the system will add the Flight Cost property to the flight, using (in priority order based on what's found) elapsed Hobbs time, elapsed tach time, or total flight time.
  • If you record the properties "Lesson Start" and "Lesson End", then autofill can fill in an estimate of ground instruction given or ground instruction received.  Specifically, if the duration of the flight is less than the duration of the lesson itself, then the remainder of the lesson time is presumed to be ground instruction, and if you logged Instructor time then it's assumed to be given and if you log Dual Received, it's assumed to have been received.
  • If you put "VORCHK" in the comments for a new flight, then a VOR check will be added for the flight's aircraft on the flight's date, and everything after the "K" up to the next whitespace character will be added as a maintenance record note as well.  E.g., if you create a new flight in N12345 on Oct 6 2022 and add "VORCHK-SEA-PAE-4Deg" to the comments, then N12345's last VOR check will be set to Oct 6 2022 (unless it's already set to a later date) and a note "SEA-PAE-4Deg" (indicating two VORs with 4 degree error) will be added in the maintenance notes.  Only works if you provide a note, and only for real, registered aircraft.
  • If you use the METAR property on the website, type an ICAO code for an airport and it will show autocompletions from the past several hours for that airport.
  • (Lots more to come as I remember all of the numerous tiny features here-and-there)

Training

Can my instructor endorse my logbook?

Link to this FAQ

Yes. You must first designate your instructor as being such in MyFlightbook. Once they have accepted your invitation to be their instructor, they can provide "back of the logbook" endorsements.

There are a wide variety of endorsement templates in the system, including:

  • Readiness endorsements (e.g., to take a practical test)
  • Competency endorsements such as Tailwheel or High Performance sign-offs
  • Periodic training endorsements such as flight review

There is even a free-form template for endorsements that are not built-in.

Can my instructor sign a flight?

Link to this FAQ

Yes; there are multiple ways to do so:

  • If you have an ongoing relationship with the instructor (e.g., if they are training you for a rating), you should designate them as your instructor in MyFlightbook. They can then sign your flights either in person using the mobile app, or after a flight at your request.
  • If you do not have an ongoing relationship with the instructor (e.g., for a one-off checkout) and you are using the mobile app on a smartphone or tablet, the instructor can sign the flight with their fingertip. Save the flight, then view it in your recent flights list and there will be an option to sign it. Hand the phone/tablet to the instructor, and they can scribble their signature.

I did my long cross-country, but it's still showing as incomplete. Why?

Link to this FAQ
There are several reasons that MyFlightbook might not match a long cross-country.  The specifics will vary from rating to rating along with the requirements, but here are some things to check:
  • Most importantly, put it into a single logbook entry.  MyFlightbook does not decide how you might group flights, so it is looking for a single entry.  For FAA ratings at least, the regulations typically say "a" (singular) flight.  It is probably perfectly OK for a group of entries to constitute having met the requirement when you show up for a checkride (that's not advice!!), but MyFlightbook does not try to group them for you.  See the FAA's Van Zanen interpretation for the FAA's guidance on logging flights.
  • Probably goes without saying, but make sure that you log cross-country time for the flight.  
  • If it's supposed to be a solo flight, be sure to log solo time.  In some cases, you can substitute "Duties of PIC with an Instructor on Board"  (DPIC/IOB) for solo, but if so, please read this blog post on additional requirements.  But remember: "solo" means "only occupant".  If an instructor is in the plane with you, it's not solo.
  • Pay attention to the distance requirements for the flight, MyFlightbook will measure it and verify it, including individual leg lengths or distance-from-origin.  (Note, of course, that "origin" plays back to the "single entry" issue above: imagine that you need to fly from A to B for fuel before starting the main part of your journey.  It's possible that including or excluding that segment alters the distance-from-origin of the flight!)
  • If full-stop landings are required, then log full-stop landings, not just landings.

I'm an instructor - can I view, add, or edit flights in my student's logbook?

Link to this FAQ
Your student can add you as their instructor by going to Instructors under Training tab, or you can add them as your student by going to Students under the Training tab.

Once you have an instructor/student relationship set up, the student can grant permission for you to view their logbook (also at Instructors under the Training tab).  If they give you this permission, you can review their logbook and sign any un-signed flight entries, or re-sign any flight entries for which the signature has been invalidated by an edit to the underlying entry. 

The student can also grant permission for the instructor to add new flights to their logbook.  If they do this, then when viewing their logbook you will have the option to create new entries and then sign it.

In general, you can NOT edit a student's existing flight, but there are 3 exceptions to this:
  • If they have explicitly requested your signature on a flight entry, the entry is marked with your account and you will have the opportunity to edit when signing.
  • If you have previously signed an entry but the signature is now invalid, you can edit the entry as part of re-signing it.
  • If the student has granted you permission to add flights to their logbook, then you can remove the signature from an entry that you have previously signed.  The entry is then in a state of awaiting a signature from you, and thus can be edited (by the first bullet above)
If one of those three scenarios applies, then when you go to sign the flight, you will have the option to edit the flight while reviewing it for your signature.

Will the FAA accept signatures on MyFlightbook?

Link to this FAQ

The FAA does accept digital signatures, and outlines the criteria for doing so in FAA circular AC No: 120-78A. While we believe MyFlightbook is compliant with this AC (and we explain why we believe MyFlightbook is compliant here), the FAA has thus far not indicated willingness to even evaluate, much less certify, online logbook systems for compliance.

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