Originally Posted by
BrianATL
How important is a digital logbook now? Do employers prefer it? When you interview, do you normally take in your physical one and send them a digital copy, or do you even need your physical one any more at all?
I still keep both a paper and digital logbook. While it's not a deal breaker either way it seems now days employers prefer a digital logbook. Not only is it a super clean format but a digital logbook pretty much eliminates any chance for mathematical errors. A good digital logbook has built in rules that ensure you're logging your time correctly. Granted with diligence it's nothing you can't do in a paper logbook. I hear stories from HR about guys coming in for an interview and the columns in their book have disparities of 50 hours or more and flights are incorrectly logged. Definitely a red flag to a future employer that you're detail oriented.
The other advantage with a digital log is as you are setting out to get a job you can simply email the prospective employer your logbook, they can easily review your flight records in an easy to read format giving you an air of professionalism before you ever show up in person.
When I was flying corporate we used Garmin Pilot for flight planning, filing and navigation. It has a built in logbook that was really slick. since it is being used for navigation it already has your position information; it would automatically log the departure & destination, time off and on the ground, calculate total flight time, auto calculate X-country time and night time based off time of day, it would even keep track of day/night landing & takeoffs. At the end of the flight all I had to do was enter the N-number, put in actual IMC time, # of holds and what approaches I shot. It worked amazingly well. I would let the app log the flights and then copy them to my paper log every couple of weeks or so.
I recently got on with the airlines and unfortunately the Garmin app just wasn't designed for 121 ops. I did some research on digital logbook programs and finally settled on Mcc PilotLog. It isn't as slick as the Garmin app was but it allows me to log flight numbers, pairing codes and is able to download my schedule and completed flights right from my company roster (FLICA). I'm still learning how to fully use all of the features but it seems like the best option considereing functionality vs price point.