Aircraft in your logbook
Aircraft are added by typing a registration on a flight. Each aircraft has a profile with its details and the flights you've logged in it.
In Pilot Lab you don't set up a fleet before you start logging. You add an aircraft the first time you fly it, straight from the flight.
Add an aircraft
- Open a flight (press Add flight, or click an existing entry).
- In the Aircraft field, start typing the registration.
- Pick the aircraft from the list, or, if it isn't there, press Enter. You'll see "No matches for ZK-XXX. Press Enter to add it."
That's all. The aircraft is saved and linked to the flight.
A few things help here:
- NZ registrations match however you type them:
ZK-EQT,ZKEQTandEQTall find the same aircraft. - Aircraft you fly often are listed first.
- If the aircraft is already known to Pilot Lab, for example from the NZ register, its make, model and type are filled in for you.
There's no separate "add aircraft" form for a personal logbook. The Aircraft page lists aircraft but has no add button.
Why the aircraft matters
The aircraft decides whether a flight's time goes in the Single-Engine or Multi-Engine columns. Pilot Lab reads that from the aircraft's engine class, category or engine type, and falls back to recognising common types (a C172 is single-engine, a PA34 is a twin). If it doesn't know the type, it reads the class written beside it, so SLG2 (ASEL) is single-engine and BE55 (AMEL) is multi-engine. Helicopters and gyroplanes go in neither column.
If Pilot Lab can't tell, the flight's full page shows a warning that the engine classification couldn't be determined. Fix the aircraft's details (below). Flights already logged in it are not recalculated on their own; a flight picks up the change the next time you edit it. To update every flight at once, press Apply ruleset under Settings > Logbook settings, which recalculates the whole logbook without changing anything you entered.
Open an aircraft's profile
- In Logbook > Entries, click the registration in any row.
- Or on your Home page, type
/in the ask bar and choose Aircraft (shortcut G then A).
There is no Aircraft link in the sidebar of a personal logbook.
The Aircraft page lists every aircraft you can see, with a search box. Aircraft from the shared register appear here too, so the list can be much longer than the aircraft you've flown. Search for a registration to find yours.
Each profile has six tabs:
| Tab | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Metrics | Known movements, linked entries, airports visited and known duration |
| Insights | Your most common route in this aircraft, with more to come |
| Logs | The aircraft's flight history, each linked to its logbook entry |
| Notes | Notes that mention this aircraft, and what they most often link with |
| Comments | Not in use yet |
| Attachments | Not in use yet |
The side of the profile lists the aircraft's details: serial, ICAO type, type, category, class, engine, and where the record came from. You can add a cover photo.
Correct an aircraft's details
On the profile, press the pencil button. You can change the registration, make, model, serial number, ICAO type, raw type, category, class, engine count and engine type. Press Save changes.
These are plain text boxes, so type the value carefully. The quickest way to settle single or multi-engine is to type single or multi in Engine count. Changing the category, class or engine fields marks the aircraft as manually classified, and Pilot Lab uses your values from then on.
Aircraft that belong to a flying club's fleet can't be edited from a personal logbook. The club manages them.
What isn't there yet
- No add button on the Aircraft page. Add aircraft from a flight.
- No way to remove an aircraft from the Aircraft list.
- No separate "complex" or "high performance" class.