What logbooks do airline pilots use?

The SP-30 is the most widely used logbook on the market. This bold and brightly colored logbook has the same trusted page and column layout as the Standard ASA SP-30 black logbook. The book the pros use. Aviations most popular professional logbook can handle 10 years of data.



Commercial airline pilots in 2026 primarily utilize a "dual-system" approach for high-fidelity record-keeping, maintaining both a professional paper logbook and a sophisticated digital log. For the physical copy, industry standards like the Jeppesen Professional Pilot Logbook or the ASA Master Logbook are common; these feature high-quality ledger paper and a horizontal layout designed to record up to ten years of flight data, including instrument approaches, night landings, and PIC (Pilot in Command) time. However, for daily operations, most pilots have shifted toward cloud-based digital platforms such as LogTen Pro or Safelog. These digital versions offer the advantage of automated syncing with airline crew scheduling systems, instant calculations for legal currency requirements, and easy backup to prevent the loss of years of career data. These logbooks are not just for nostalgia; they are legally binding documents required by aviation authorities (like the FAA or EASA) to prove a pilot meets the mandatory experience levels for license renewals and captain upgrades.

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Every pilot will occasionally want to update their paper logbook, but keeping a digital log is a great way to track daily flights. The best solution for many fliers is to work with a combination—let your EFB app or spreadsheet track the day-to-day stuff, and then keep an official logbook somewhere safe.

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The FAA doesn't lay out exactly how you should log your hours, even those hours that the rules require. While commercially available paper pilot logbooks have been the standard for decades, nothing specifically says a digital one won't do.

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In the United States, a pilot is required to log all flight time that is used to meet the minimum requirements for a certificate, rating, flight review, or instrument proficiency check, and for currency. This means that a pilot does not need to record every single one of his or her flights.

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Though most pilots do use standardized formats for both paper and electronic logbooks, you are free to use almost anything — a spiral notebook, an Excel spreadsheet, or whatever else you choose as your preferred means of documenting required flight time. That's the easy part.

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An ELD can be on a smartphone or other wireless device if the device meets the ELD rule's technical specifications. If the device is a portable it must be mounted in a fixed position during commercial motor vehicle (CMV) operation and visible to the driver from a normal seated driving position.

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Reading newspapers but NOT books Because papers are usually filled with many short articles, it means that a pilot's attention is not taken for a dangerous length of time. But the same can't be said for novels and other lengthy books, which are banned from the cockpit.

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John Edward Long, Jr. (1915–July 18, 1999) was an American pilot who is in the Guinness Book of Records for the most flight time by a pilot: over 65,000 hours (more than seven years and four months) at the time of his death. He began in 1933 at the age of 17, when he took his first and only flying lesson.

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After learning to fly and getting their initial licenses, ratings and certificates, many professional pilots continue to earn hours working as a certified flight instructor. From there they may also augment hours by flying cargo, charter and private operations or ferrying aircraft.

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Date. Total flight time or lesson time. Location where the aircraft departed and arrived, or for lessons in a flight simulator or flight training device, the location where the lesson occurred. Type and identification of aircraft, flight simulator, flight training device, or aviation training device, as appropriate.

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