Add notes to a flight
Write about a flight from inside its logbook entry, or link an existing note to the flights it covers.
There are two ways to connect a note to a flight: write it from the flight itself, or link flights when you create a note from the Notes page. Either way the note appears in your notes list with the flight shown beside it, and the flight's entry keeps a link back to the note.
Write from the flight
This is the quickest way to capture a debrief while it is fresh.
- Open the flight in your logbook.
- Scroll to the Notes section and expand it.
- Click where it says Type some notes here... and start writing.
The first time you click in, Pilot Lab creates a note for that flight. Its title is the aircraft and route, for example ZK-EBR · NZAR → NZTG. Everything you write saves as you go. There is a small spinner while it saves.
Once the note exists, Open note takes you to the full note editor, where you have headings, checklists, tables, images and inline comments. Anything you write there shows back in the flight's Notes section, and the other way round, because it is the same note.
The Notes section always edits one note for the flight. If you open it again later, you carry on in the same note rather than starting a new one. If you had already linked a Text note to this flight from the Notes page, the section shows and edits that note instead of creating another. A Drawing note linked to the flight is not shown here, because the section only writes text. Open it from the Notes page.
Below the note, the section also lists:
- Mentioned in notes: every note you can open that mentions this flight with @ in its text.
- Often mentioned with: the aircraft, aerodromes, instructors, flights and notes that most often appear in notes alongside this flight.
Link flights when you create a note
When the note covers more than one flight, for example a debrief of a navigation exercise flown over two legs, start it from the Notes page instead:
- Choose New note, and keep Text as the kind, or pick Drawing.
- Open Link to flights. The list shows your logbook entries newest first, as route, date and registration.
- Tick each flight the note is about. The button shows how many you have selected.
- Choose Create note.
At the bottom of the note, Linked flights lists each linked flight with its route, date, hours and registration. Select one to open that flight.
Mention a flight in a note
In a Text note, type @ and search for a flight to drop a link to it into your writing. The flight then also appears under Linked flights, marked Mentioned in the note, and the note shows in that flight's Mentioned in notes. Delete the link from the text and the flight leaves both lists.
The flights you tick at creation are fixed. The Linked flights list has no way to add or remove them afterwards. To connect a note to another flight later, mention the flight with @ in the text. If you need a different set of ticked flights, use Make a copy from the note's menu (the copy keeps the links) or create a new note with the right flights.
Where linked flights show up
- In the notes list, a note with a linked flight shows a small chip with the registration, the flight's hours and the route, for example ZK-EBR · 1.4 hrs · NZAR→NZTG. If a note is linked to several flights, the chip shows the first.
- The Recent flights bar at the top of the notes list shows your last four flights. Selecting one opens the flight, where its Notes section is waiting.
- If you flew yesterday, the notes list offers Add debrief, which starts a new note.
Privacy
Flight notes start Private, so only you can read them, the same as any new note. In a club workspace, an instructor cannot see a private note of yours. To share one, open the note's menu and choose Make workspace. See Write a note.
Documents on a flight
Receipts, fuel slips, a photo of the tech log or a scanned nav log belong in documents rather than notes. You can link a document to a flight when you upload it, or later with Attach to flight. See Upload a licence, medical or certificate and Organise your documents.