Logging Time

Personal logbooks..

• What time should be recorded?

  "The time the aircraft commences to taxy for the purpose of take-off shall be regarded as the time of departure, and the time the aircraft completes its normal taxying operation after touching down shall be regarded as the time of arrival."

  This is an extract from the "Instructions for use" given in the Pooley's log book. It is shortened by many to "chock-to-chock" times, and "brakes-off to brakes-on" times.
  
  So if you don't fly, you don't log any time at all. Even if you taxy for departure, and then abort because you discover a problem during the run-up, you still don't log anything.
  
  Equally, if you shut down at the pumps, refuel, and then taxy to park, you don't log anything for the last bit.
  
  Since the actual duration of the flight needs to be recorded for the aircraft and engine logbooks (see below), you should also record the actual time of takeoff and touchdown.

• What about P1, Pu/t and P1/S?

  You log time as P1 if you are in command.
  
  You are in command of the aircraft if you are a student flying solo (nobody else is!!), so all student solo flights should be logged as P1.
  
  If you are flying with another pilot, you must agree together who is in command. That person logs P1 time, the other is a passenger and logs nothing. It is possible to switch responsibilities, in which case each will log their part of the flight is P1.
  
  If you are flying with an instructor who is giving you training, you log the time as Pu/t. (S)he will log the flight as P1.
  
  If you are flying with an examiner on a flight test for the grant or renewal of a licence or rating, you log the time as P1/S if you pass the test, and as Pu/t if you fail it. There are no other circumstances in which (in the UK at least) you log time as P1/S. Not for flying school/club/group checkouts, even if you do this with an instructor.
  
  For pre-rental checkouts with an instructor, it is either P1 or Pu/t according to whether there is any training being given, and this should be agreed with the instructor up front to avoid confusion.
  
  

• What about P2?

  There is no such thing as P2 except for flights conducted in aircraft types where two pilots constitute the minimum permissible crew.
  
  

• What about safety pilots?

  In the case of a pilot who has a medical condition requiring him to fly only with a suitably qualified and current safety pilot, there is still no P2. The safety pilot logs nothing unless the pilot in command is incapacitated, in which case the safety pilot is P1 for the remainder of the flight.
  
  Here is the official version:
  

  JAR Operational Safety Pilot Limitation.
  
  This limitation is added to a medical certificate when a pilot is considered to be at increased risk of incapacitation compared to his peer group.
  
  A Safety Pilot is a pilot who is qualified to act as PIC on the class/type of aeroplane and is carried on board the aeroplane for the purpose of taking over control should the person acting as Pi/c become incapacitated.
  
  A safety pilot unless he/she has to take over control of the aircraft is supernumerary and cannot log any flying time. Flight time can be shared with the other pilot by agreement, as normal, and if the safety pilot has to take over control, the flight time should be logged as Pi/c.
  
  (extracted from ‘JAR Safety Pilot Information Sheet’ issued September 2001)

• CAA General Information Document (GID)

  There is one of these on recording flight time at:
  
  http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/175/srg_fcl_gid44.pdf

Aircraft logbooks..

• What time should be recorded?

  Flight time, in hours and minutes. Nothing else. That's right, if the aeroplane doesn't fly, nothing gets logged in the aeroplane's log book.
  
  Many people believe that various approximations to flight time are acceptable. Examples of these include tacho time and brakes-off to brakes-on, less some nominal amount of time to represent taxying. Both of these are wrong, despite the fact that it may be that the CAA doesn't seem overly concerned sometimes. Timothy Nathan expressed this in possibly the clearest terms possible when he wrote (on 20.2.02):
  
  

  "The law is that you record airborne time. You may “get away with” other approximations, but then under normal circumstances no serious investigation is done, so it is easy to get away with. If you have an engine failure and a crash and it is demonstrated that you have been systematically entering log book entries wrongly (which could be proved from tower logs) then the CAA may deem your CofA to have been retrospectively invalidated and therefore your insurance won’t pay up ...."

  The documents that specify how the time should be recorded for the aircraft and engine are CAP 398 (aircraft logbook) and CAP 399 (Engine logbook) respectively.