Digital Pilot Logbooks: Here's What You're Missing

Digital pilot logbooks make it easy to track your flight hours — but not everyone knows about them.

It’s time to take the tedium out of flight logging. Here’s how digital pilot logbooks work, and what they can do beyond just logging your hours.

The problem with paper pilot logbooks

Pilot logbooks are essential to keeping the flight records necessary to keep you compliant. Without accurate flight logs, you can open yourself up to risk if you’re ever audited by your country’s aviation institution. Logged and documented flights are also essential for professional flight jobs, licenses, ratings and insurance. Without those records, there’s no paper trail backing up your flight experience.

But paper logbooks come with a few problems:

Problem #1: Once they’re gone, they’re gone

Prone to losing things? You probably don’t want to keep just a paper logbook then. Paper logbooks can be lost or destroyed, and unlike a digital log, there’s no backup. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, and all of your flight logs with it.

Problem #2: Manual math is required

Many pilots are naturals with numbers, but having to calculate your flight hours can be a bit tedious. With a paper pilot’s log, it’s just one more to-do that ruins the high of flying to calculate your flight hours.

Problem #3: Limited flight data

Paper logbooks contain only the most basic information about your flight. This is a problem because none of that gives you information about flying conditions, your speed, your altitude or the route you took. With a paper pilot’s log, there’s no way to look back on a flight and really see the entire picture.

Problem #4: It’s easy to forget to update your log

The recommendation is to never fly with your logbook, in case something happens and your book gets destroyed. But that means that you need to remember the details of your flight and that you need to remember to update it when you’re back on the ground.

It’s easy to forget, which means that paper pilot logbooks aren’t always very accurate, and are often left incomplete.

We’re only human, but in an increasingly digital world, we think it’s high-time pilot logbooks joined us in the future.

Digital pilot logbooks make everything easier

Traditional paper pilot logbooks aren’t the easiest to use and are prone to all kinds of problems. It’s 2022, and we decided logbooks needed the same innovation that the flight industry has enjoyed.

Digital pilot logbooks allow you to log flight details with unbeatable accuracy, and offer more data on your flights than you would ever want to track yourself. With GPS technology digital pilot logbooks create detailed records of your flights for you and allow you to revisit those details anywhere you and your phone are.

Here are just a few things a digital pilot’s logbook like Pilot Life can do:

More flight data at your fingertips

Using advanced GPS technology, digital pilot logbooks generate detailed records of your flight paths, without the need to manually log every detail. Get detailed maps of where you’ve been with dates and timestamps — all you need to do is bring your phone. Digital pilot logbooks can even track altitude and groundspeed with your flight paths.

Less math, more flying

Unless you love calculating flight hours, manually calculating your flight time is a tedious task we’d like to think we’re leaving in the 20th century. Digital pilot logbooks take the math out of flying, so you can spend more time plotting your next destination.

Get location-based airport data

Digital pilot logbooks allow you to get data on nearby official airports based on your location — no more Googling.

Zero chance of your data being lost in your luggage

Digital pilot logbooks are cloud-based, which means that even if you lose your phone, you won’t lose your flight logs.

Ultra-secure and private

Digital pilot logbooks like Pilot Life were designed with your personal privacy in mind. Share the data you want, and keep everything else to yourself. Your data is stored in the cloud on state-of-the-art and secure servers.

An opportunity to connect with other pilots

Flying can be something of a solo sport, but that doesn’t mean you can’t inspire (and be inspired). Digital pilot logbooks allow you to share your flight paths (if you want) with other pilots and follow the journeys of other pilots. It’s an opportunity to be a part of a community for aviation enthusiasts, and we think it’s about time.

Digital pilot logbooks made simple

Most of the digital pilot logbooks on the market are made for commercial pilots, and it shows. These programs are seriously robust and seriously complicated for the average user.

The last thing anyone wants to do is to take something simple and make it more complicated. That’s why we created Pilot Life.

Our digital pilot logbook app makes it easy for you to automatically track your flights and compile the reports you need to audit-proof yourself.

Stay safe in the skies, and make record-keeping simple, with a digital logbook that was made for people who still believe in the joy of flying.