ForeFlight Logbook Times

[gsxrpilot]

This whole discussion seems to be about which scalpel to use to bring down the mighty redwood. Does anyone log to a greater detail than a 1/10th of an hour? That 1/10th of an hour is 6 minutes. +/- 6 minutes would be a range of 12 minutes. A rough estimation based on Tach/Hobbs/ForeFlight/JPI/CloudAhoy or the length of the shadow on the ramp, would seem to be sufficiently accurate for our log books where the recording is based entirely on the honor system.

[Davidv]

Agreed, I just think it’s important to use a method that you believe is reasonably accurate and then stick with it, or else the honor system gets abused since after hundreds or thousands of hours a few tenths of an hour off starts to add up.

[jaylw314]

19 minutes ago, gsxrpilot said:

This whole discussion seems to be about which scalpel to use to bring down the mighty redwood. Does anyone log to a greater detail than a 1/10th of an hour?

I know, but I love that sort of stuff!  Kind of like digging yourself out of jail with a toothpick 

[PT20J]

2 hours ago, jaylw314 said:

"comes to rest after landing."  I wonder how that is interpreted.  I landed at PDX once and it took ground about 30 minutes to taxi us around to the GA terminal.  I wonder if I should have subtracted that time from my flight time?

No, that is part of your loggable flight time.

[PT20J]

1 hour ago, Davidv said:

If anything, every flight school is overestimating time by using the Hobbs alone since it’s activated in a lot of planes by the rise of oil pressure (when the aircraft turns on and off).

Flight schools like Hobbs time for billing purposes.

BTW, the time you log as a pilot is different from the time logged for maintenance records. Per part 1.1:  "Time in Service, with respect to maintenance records, means the time from the moment the aircraft leaves the surface of the earth until it touches it at the next point of landing."

Most airplanes do not have an air-switched Hobbs meter, so most schools and rental outfits bill by Hobbs and record maintenance by tach time. The savings on using air Hobbs for maintenance was enough that the Part 135 operation I sometimes fly for installed air Hobbs in all the airplanes. The pilot flight time is also important in commercial operations because there are time limits on it, so the company got the FAA to agree to add .02 hours per landing to the Hobbs time to calculate flight time.

Can we stop now? It's making my head hurt. Log whatever you think is reasonable. For Part 91 operations, no one is ever going to question it.

Skip

[exM20K]

45 minutes ago, PT20J said:

Can we stop now? It's making my head hurt. Log whatever you think is reasonable. For Part 91 operations, no one is ever going to question it.

Amen., but.... here's another scenario applicable to me:

• Plane is almost entirely business / maintenance / currency use
• MX is based on tach time
• Depreciation, such as it is formulaic, is based on tach time
• Consistency is very important with respect to tax records
• I have enough time logged that I'm not logging for ego or insurance

therefore, I record tach time.

-dan

[Davidv]

12 hours ago, PT20J said:

Flight schools like Hobbs time for billing purposes.

BTW, the time you log as a pilot is different from the time logged for maintenance records. Per part 1.1:  "Time in Service, with respect to maintenance records, means the time from the moment the aircraft leaves the surface of the earth until it touches it at the next point of landing."

Most airplanes do not have an air-switched Hobbs meter, so most schools and rental outfits bill by Hobbs and record maintenance by tach time. The savings on using air Hobbs for maintenance was enough that the Part 135 operation I sometimes fly for installed air Hobbs in all the airplanes. The pilot flight time is also important in commercial operations because there are time limits on it, so the company got the FAA to agree to add .02 hours per landing to the Hobbs time to calculate flight time.

Can we stop now? It's making my head hurt. Log whatever you think is reasonable. For Part 91 operations, no one is ever going to question it.

Skip

Skip, on the flight school point I was just pointing out that every flight school I’ve seen (which isn’t more than 2-3 down here in south Florida) the students and instructors (every one of them going for their 1500 hours) is logging according to Hobbs time.  

Yes it’s an annoyingly precise topic but like most nerds here (me), it’s interesting to look at the details even if I just write down the ForeFlight times if they look accurate when flying rather than taking out a pen and paper to calculate time down to the .01 hour.

[Stephen]

On 6/10/2019 at 10:22 AM, gsxrpilot said:

I use the flight time from my EDM900. Every so often, I download the data and upload it to my SavvyAnalysis account. That has a "duration" column that seems to be much closer to reality than ForeFlight. Then I update my ForeFlight log book. 

I'm certainly not about to pull out a stopwatch. But then logged flight time isn't all that important to me.

Ditto; use the EDM 900 to update the tach/hobbs start/stop time. Shut down > hold two buttons on EDM 900 to show tach/hobbs > take pic with phone and look at pics for times.