CFI & CFII Logbook Entries:
 

Hi all, please share your wisdom. I am a newly minted CFI/CFII, please help me with regards to logbook entries both student and my own.

1) Do I have to sign my own logbook for dual given activities?

2) For a SIM session in MY OWN logbook I can enter: "dual given" and "Simulator" - Do I note instrument approaches done or takeoffs & landings?

3) For a SIM session in the student's logbook, I only enter time in the "Simulator" and "Dual given" blocks right?

I will have many, many more questions before I'm done. Does anyone know of a breakdown of what gets written where? I can look at my own logbook to see the entries I should be writing in my student's books - but as for what an instructor puts in his and whether anyone signs it - its a mystery to me!

Thank you for you help. Please forgive my lack of knowledge - I am tired and overwhelmed already...but I want to keep going and be the best CFI I can be.

1) Do whatever you want with your logbook. I just write my student name and the lesson we did.

2) Are you flying the simulator? Log as Dual only.

3) Log simulator and dual only in a student logbook.

There are places in the back of the book you can put endorsements and in the very back there is empty sheets, where I put additional endorsements or I will put ground work. Can you provide a little more info for the last question.

Um, I beg to differ.

Simulator time (although you probably mean flight training device time) should go in one and only one column. It is not flight time, so it should not be entered as dual received since most logbooks have dual received as a subset of "flight time" or "piloting time" of which simulator flying is neither.

Same goes for when you instruct in a simulator/flight training device. "Dual given" or "as flight instructor" is also usually a subset of flight or piloting time. There really is no entry in an instructor's logbook for the time spent giving dual instruction in a simulator.

However, for your own records (which is a huge point of your logbook) you can log whatever you like. I used to have a column I made up called "simulator instruction given" or something of that nature. It didn't count for anything except for my own purpose of knowing roughly how much instrument instruction I gave, which I thought would be beneficial if I could spit it out during an airline interview.

So,
2) Nothing to log in CFI's logbook.
3) Log in Simulator column ONLY in student's logbook.

I not sure if you know, but there is two different columns. One for Dual and another for flight time. I never made a comment about logging flight time.

This is correct. Simulator is "dual" by definition, it cannot be done solo. Dual means in an airplane, both given and recieved.

As an instructor, do NOT log sim time in any flight time column. It's a good idea to keep track of it in a custom column, as the sim time might help you get a job as an instructor someday.

If you want to play games with your own logbook, fine go ahead. But PLEASE do not do this to your students...they will not appreciate it when they are getting grilled at their first airline interview.

My logbook has a column for "As Flight Instructor" and then I put the students name and type of training in the remarks.

I'd highly reccomend a thorough reading of 61.51 as well.

I can't find the regs (if there are any) but I don't log approaches as the II unless I'm IMC. And I don't log landings unless I made them.

The FAA says that you have to be in IMC in order to log it as instrument time. Some people will debate the approach and landing part.

Just saw you were out of GEG. I've got people at Felts. In fact Ricky did my CFI-A and SE-Comm. way back when. Whats the name of that FBO that has the limo and will order you pizza if you call up half an hour out? Shiny employees at the desk?:p

The first thing to be aware of is that there are things that fit into very specific FAA definitions for logging and others where the choice of how to log is a bookkeeping issue. The second is that there is one reg - 61.51 that is the starting point for answering every question about the FAA's requirements for logging time.

No. First of all "dual given" is not a required FAA entry and the only official FAA form where it is even asked is if you some day apply to be a DPE. So, whether you log it at all and how you log it is up to you - with one catch being your next question.

You don't log simulator because the simulator in the logbook is typically reserved for time when you fly the simulator, not when you are teaching someone else.

Dual given, you can enter mostly because it's not a required column and, as someone else said, the definition of training (received or given) includes both flight and simulator time. But here's the catch: Time in a simulator or FTD is =never= "flight time." So, while training you give in a sim is "training given" it is =not= "flight training given". So, you have a bookkeeping choice to make about whether you use the column or not. Most people I know use "dual" to mean training in flight, not on the ground in a trainer.

That's another bookeeping issue. But it's your student's choice, not yours.

The "dual" issue is the bookkeeping issue. Like I said earlier, many people reserve that column for flight training received and training in a sim is never "flight" training. Whether your student wants to include the sim training and subtract it out when filling out an 8710 (which separates flight from sim time) or keeps them separate to begin with, is up to your student. And your student, one she makes the decision, needs to understand what the decision is so she can avoid being screwed up by some instructor i the future who is convinced that his different bookkeeping choices are the "right" ones.

As someone else said, start with 61.51 - the Universal Rule of Logging Time. It sets out a series of boxes that tell you what you may log. Ad the check the definitions in FAR 1.1 and 61.1, especially those dealing with "flight" ad "training" and "pilot time."