Managing Your Aircraft Types

Set up your aircraft types and LogTen does the rest of the work for you

When you're flying an A320 or a B732, your time will naturally be Jet time. So instead of taking up a separate time field to track something like Jet time, and Multi-Engine time, LogTen uses the Aircraft Type to automatically track all of this in the background. Because of this, it's important to set the Engine Type, Category, and Class of each of your Aircraft Types at the outset. Once this is done, there is no need to separate your time out within LogTen by SE PIC, SE Dual, etc. By way of example, when flying a C172, just log your time as PIC, LogTen knows that a C172 is an SE airplane because that information will have been set on the Types page.

LogTen also contains a database of the vast majority of Aircraft Types to help you fill in this information. It draws its information from the FAA list of types, and you can automatically populate the details by entering in its official "FAA Type ID" into the Type field. These are generally 4-digit codes, like C152 or B734 (for a B737-400). Here are a few links to help you identify these:

• FAA ORDER JO 7340.2D, starting on page 411
• Wikipedia: List of ICAO aircraft type designators

Also, you can often search and locate these types by key pieces of an aircraft type. For example, a more difficult to locate aircraft type is a TB-20 -- its "official" code is a bit vague. If you start entering "TB" into the Type, you'll be given some options that may match your search, and you'll see "TB-20" is included in the model information of the TRIN type.

Don't feel obligated to keep your aircraft types listed by these official codes. LogTen offers these codes to help you fill in this information quickly, but if you would like it to appear differently in your logbook, feel free to change the Type after. For example, just change "TRIN" back to "TB-20".

This is also how we recommend keeping track of variants of the same type. You may fly multiple varieties of a Cessna 172, and these are currently grouped into as a single C172 type. You may add a new Aircraft Type and enter C172 to populate the type information, and then change it to C172N. Add another C172, and change it to C172P.

More than meets the eye! LogTen's powerful bi-directional database structure means that not only is a flight "linked" to an aircraft (meaning a change in the aircraft entry updates in every flight in that aircraft) but that each Aircraft and even each Aircraft Type knows the flights that are logged with it and can quickly display information based on this. Select an Aircraft or Aircraft Type and you'll be able to see the flights flown with that particular entry, and see the total time too!

Need to track simulators of specific types? If a type already exists in your logbook, enter a duplicate of that type, and you'll be prompted to set it as a simulator type. E.g. If you have a B732 in your logbook already, add a new Aircraft Type and name it B732. LogTen will recognize one of these has already been entered, and prompt you to set it as B732 SIM.

If you are entering a Simulator Aircraft Type manually, make sure you select the appropriate value for the Category, such as "Simulator", "Training Device", or "PCATD" (Personal Computer-based Aviation Training Device).

See also: How Do I Log My Simulator Time?