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4 Answers

logbooks – instrument approaches

Asked by: 5478 views Instrument Rating

Hi. I'm currently working towards my Instrument rating - airplane.  I received my Instrument Rating - rotorcraft last year and am using the same logbook for both airframes.  The previous school used a coded entry system  for the types of approaches rather than writing very small in the approach type column. A reference label in the front of the logbook spells out which each number represents in the Approach/Type column. It's a practice that went unchallenged through my time from private - CFII (kind of why I'm sheepish about asking this!) by every DPE and even the FSDO when they audited our school and logbooks. This new outfit wants the entry to state the type, the place, and the runway all in that tiny little box. According to 61.51.g all that's required is type and location, of which that's column 4 and 5 are for.  My question is, is a coded system allowed or is it based per flight school?

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4 Answers



  1. Mark Kolber on Mar 30, 2017

    First, “column 4 and 5” does not compute. Understand that 61.51 defines what must be logged, but different logbook publishers set up their logbooks in different ways. I’ve seen logbooks with a column for “type of approach,” but all the ones I’ve actually used have had a column for the number of approaches, leaving the description for a comments box. So, without seeing what you are talking about, I really can’t answer too well.

    In general, though, the use of shorthand, or not, is a choice. Your first school chose to use shorthand for the type of approach. Your new school chooses to put it in longhand. Neither is inherently right or wrong, so long as the shorthand terms are defined somehow. Not for approaches, but I’ve used defined shorthand and symbols for a number of things in my old paper log.

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  2. Russ Roslewski on Mar 30, 2017

    Like Mark suggests, I use the comments box to list the type of approaches, and the “Approaches” box just gets a number. Unless you have an unusual logbook, you should have plenty of room. The new school wants to list type, place and runway when all that is required is type and place – I don’t see an issue. In my students’ logbooks (and my own as well), I will generally put runway in there as well. Although it’s not required, it allows me to look through their logbook and easily see that we’ve done the XXX ILS RWY 17 a bunch of times, but never the ILS to 35, so let’s go try that one today.

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  3. jcamp on Mar 30, 2017

    Thanks Mark and Russ. Sorry, yes I should have said I use the brown Jeppesen logbook so columns 4 and 5 refer to the from/to columns. and the approach columns break down in the the approach into number and type. Thanks for showing me that I didn’t miss anything in the FAR’s, one of the few that is straight forward. Since it’s a choice and I’d like to keep the uniformity and not mess up the logbook with a bunch of green out to appease one person but we’ll see.

    And Russ, that’s a good point with knowing which approach is being used more often but in AZ we don’t have have too many to choose from (and school policy limits a lot of airports to use on top of it).

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  4. Russ Roslewski on Mar 30, 2017

    Okay, I see what your logbook looks like now – I think you mean this one?

    https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51GTi3ihIhL.jpg

    Which has two tiny columns under “Approach” – Number and Type. You’re right, there’s not enough room under “Type” to write, well really anything. So, just put the type in the Remarks block.

    As a point or interest, realize that (as Mark said), logbooks are not “approved” in any way by the FAA. Different manufacturer have different columns, headings, sizes and all that. Even the same manufacturers will have different logbook formats within their own lines. Heck, I am on my third logbook, all the same manufacturer and the same part number (though bought years apart), but the column headings differ between them!

    Since this is the “Professional” logbook, somebody at Jeppesen decided that those columns are what worked for a lot of professional pilots. But they might not work for many others, or you.

    Oh, and I can’t tell if you were joking about “green-out”. I know they sell it, and it “seems” like a good idea to fix errors, but please don’t use it. If you do, nobody can tell what you were changing or what your purpose was by fixing it – were you trying to pad your logbook by putting in more hours? Who knows? The best solution is to just cross it out with a single line and write the new entry next to it (some would say initial the cross-out, I don’t think that really matters).

    And don’t worry too much about uniformity, by the time you have a few hundred hours in your logbook it’s going to be a jumble of different handwriting, different colored ink, things crossed out, signatures in different places, calculation errors, etc. 🙂

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