Log your first flight
Add a flight as a draft, fill in what you know, and finalise it when it's complete.
Most pilots start by adding one recent flight by hand, to see how Pilot Lab handles it. If you'd rather bring your whole history in first, go to Bring your existing logbook across instead. Either one gets your logbook going.
Add the flight
- In the sidebar, under Logbook, select Entries. (While your logbook is empty, Add one flight on Home opens a new entry straight away, with a few tips along the way.)
- Select Add flight. A new entry opens beside the list.
- Fill in what you know: the date, the aircraft, where you departed from and arrived at, your times, and your role on the flight.
The entry saves as you go, as a Draft. You don't have to finish it in one sitting. Close the panel and it stays in your list, marked Draft, until you come back to it. (A new entry you close without typing anything into is thrown away, so you won't collect empty drafts.)
Finalise it when it's complete
When the flight is complete, select Finalize. Pilot Lab checks that the entry has everything a finished logbook entry needs before it lets you:
- the flight date
- the aircraft
- departure and arrival aerodromes
- your flight position (for example PIC or dual)
- the flight rules
- a time: departure and arrival times, block times, rotor times on a helicopter, Hobbs readings, or a total
If something is missing, the button stays unavailable and hovering it says "Complete the required fields before finalizing". Fill in the gaps and try again. If the flight has changes that haven't been saved yet, hovering says that instead, and you can finalise once they've been sent.
Your totals, currency and licence progress only count finished entries. A flight left as a Draft shows in your list but isn't added up. If a total looks low, check for drafts first. See My totals don't match my paper logbook.
Once finalised, an entry is part of your permanent record. You can still correct it, and Pilot Lab keeps a history of every change. Draft and final entries, edits and deleting explains how that works.
What Pilot Lab works out for you
You type what happened, and Pilot Lab calculates the rest from it under the rules of the authority you chose when you set up your logbook. That includes the totals on your Dashboard and, if you picked a syllabus during set-up, your progress toward it.
For everything the entry form can do, including aircraft, crew, night and instrument time, and custom fields, see Add a flight.
Next
- Bring your existing logbook across so your totals include everything you've flown.
- Open Dashboard to see your totals update.