Best Way To Keep Track of Flight Hours? (Civ & Mil)
Currently at Vance AFB, waiting to start IPT, and I was wondering what the best way is to electronically log both civilian and military flight hours. I have my PPL, but I want to start keeping electronic records, especially as I begin flying military. Are there any apps/software y'all recommend for keeping track of both? And is it recommended to keep track of civ and mil time in the same paper logbook?
LogTen Pro is a pretty popular way to log time electronically. I personally don't use it, but I've heard great things about the software.
I definitely recommend an electronic version, there are several options available. Programs (like LogTen Pro) make it so much easier to sort through specific time too (PIC, Turbine, Multi, etc). When you start flying for the military, you'll want to check the data regularly. You'll fill out your 781 (flight record) and that gets transcribed to your permanent record...unfortunately opportunity for error input or the data disappearing.
If I can offer a piece of advice from the old guy...buy a nice physical logbook for your Air Force Career. Get into a cadence of once a week (or whatever works for you) manually inputting your Air Force flights. You can include notes of who you flew with or what type of mission you participated in. This was never mentioned to me as a young pilot, and I started seeing guys who did this later in my career and I always regretted no having one. It'll become an invaluable keepsake of your service to your country and will carry more stories than you can ever imagine. Yes, it's more work...but TOTALLY worth it!
I'm probably not the best example for this situation, I'm old school and stubborn. I had a physical log book for civilian time (~100 hours) and then just kept up with my military flying time to make sure things were correct. When I applied to the airlines (and then when I retired), I printed out the flying summary sheet which just showed my totals...and that was good enough for the major carriers. By the time LogTen Pro was available, it wasn't worth it to go back and log 13 years of military flying. If it was available from the start, I would have used an app like that (I'm not familiar with MilKEEP) to keep one consolidated source of flight time.
With regard to a nice Air Force logbook, I was offering an idea for a bada$$ keepsake. I regret not having one that would have been a journey back in time to see where I flew, the missions I was a part of and who I flew with. Not required, but definitely something that would become a prized possession.
Ultimately, it doesn't really matter how you keep track of your flight time. As long as you have a system that works for you, it should suffice.
MyFlightBook is quite useful and free:, you can log civ and mil flights: https://myflightbook.com/logbook/mvc/pub
Definitely a smart move to get ahead of this now. It becomes a huge pain if you wait until you retire and decide you want to fly commercially.
I waited and ended up using a spreadsheet with one sheet summarizing all of my military and civilian flight totals, which I signed, and I used MyFlightbook (free) for my GA flying. The airlines will also want to see your military flying records, including your Form 8s, (and Delta wants OPRs) so make sure you keep those organized.
If I were starting over, I’d probably use LogTen Pro because it syncs especially well across Apple devices and gives you a cleaner long-term record. I’d also make sure to log your number of landings from the beginning—that’s one thing I wish I had tracked more carefully.
Jake,
I find myself somewhere between SMAX and the younger folks. I was one who, like afgatorfan mentioned, had to go back and input a bunch of AF time into a spreadsheet. I keep a spreadsheet of ALL my time, broken out by FAA/civil categories. I log all my flights in there on a weekly basis with associated AF record locators.
Pros: Cloud storage; I can always access it (laptop, phone, etc). I have tabs for all sorts of summaries: mil totals, civ totals, airline app requests, etc. This is where I keep notes on the flights in a robust REMARKS section. This is the "keepsake" portion.
Cons: Mostly manual, and does not auto-pull from anywhere. Version control is a constant battle.
