Aero-Tips!

A good pilot is always learning -- how many times have you heard this old standard throughout your flying career? There is no truer statement in all of flying (well, with the possible exception of "there are no old, bold pilots.") It's part of what makes aviation so exciting for all of us... just when you think you've seen it all, along comes a scenario you've never imagined.

Aero-News has called upon the expertise of Thomas P. Turner, master CFI and all-around-good-guy, to bring our readers -- and us -- daily tips to improve our skills as aviators, and as representatives of the flying community. Some of them, you may have heard before... but for each of us, there will also be something we might never have considered before, or something that didn't "stick" the way it should have the first time we memorized it for the practical test.

It is our unabashed goal that "Aero-Tips" will help our readers become better, safer pilots -- as well as introducing our ground-bound readers to the concepts and principles that keep those strange aluminum-and-composite contraptions in the air... and allow them to soar magnificently through it.

Look for our daily Aero-Tips segments, coming each day to you through the Aero-News Network. Suggestions for future Aero-Tips are always welcome, as are additions or discussion of each day's tips. Remember... when it comes to being better pilots, we're all in this together.

Aero-Tips 05.10.06

Pilot logbooks serve a number of purposes. On the most basic level, they record information that proves our legal ability to fly. For some a logbook represents a challenge, to log a target number of flying hours or to fly a certain number of airplane types. There are even financial incentives to logging flight time.

The legal

FAR 61.51 tells us what is required to be logged for pilots to exercise pilot privileges:

1. Training and aeronautical experience used to meet the requirements for a certificate, rating, or flight review
2. Aeronautical experience required for meeting the recent flight experience requirements

That’s it. If you don’t plan to use flight time toward a certificate or rating, or to show basic currency (example: three landings in the last 90 days for passenger-carrying privileges) then you don’t have to log the time.

The challenge

Most pilots boast, however, about the total time they’ve spent in aircraft. Many pilots log most or all of their time in a specific airplane type, while others strive to record experience in as many types as possible during a flying career. A logbook is the accepted means of substantiating those boasts—so most pilots log every flight they take.

The financial

If you own an aircraft, or even plan on owning one, you know that time-in-type is one of the biggest variables in insurance costs. The more experience you have in a make and model of aircraft, they less expensive insurance will usually be. Time in similar-configuration airplanes (retractable gear, tailwheel, multiengine, piston rotary wing, etc.) is a big factor as well. If it isn’t written down, it didn’t happen -- and the place to write it down is a pilot’s logbook.

Me, I think a logbook is far more than a legal document or an insurance record. I tend more to the “challenge” end of the logging spectrum -- not to log time in different types (although mine has some unusual entries, including Stearman and F-15E Strike Eagle time) but to amass the highest number of hours I can, and to record the sights, sounds, and feelings of each flight as well. A few words in a logbook’s Remarks instantly spark memories of flights taken long ago. My logs are more a pilot’s diary than a past-tense daily planner.

Aero-tip of the day: Know what you must log, and what you might log to remember flights gone by.

FMI: Aero-Tips