How does flying an airplane sounds to you? Cool right?
I am proud to say that I have been working on a company which creates electronic logbooks for pilots and even for crew members from all over the globe. I definitely feel lucky having this job and being able to learn a lot about the business of flying.
Pilots, Flying and Logging
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
Every pilot, either he or she is a second officer, a trainee, a student or even the commanders themselves need a logbook. They need to input their hours and print them out for specific reasons. It is also important for them to track their hours as their salaries depend on the number of hours they are flying and going on duty even if they are just on a standby.
There are lots of things to things to note when flying and so far base on my knowledge after almost three years of supporting this product, I have listed below some of the essential points and information that a pilot has to log when flying.
Flight Date
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
The date of which they started flying and for some the date of which they had landed as well is noted because there are flights which are more than 16 hours, in such case, there will be more pilots on board to relieve the flying commander.
Block Hours
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
These are time information, block hours have different components such as:
- Planned Departure Time
- Planned Arrival Time
- Actual Time of Departure
- Time of Take Off
- Time of Landing
- Actual Time of Arrival
In some cases, Duty Hours are also logged, this means time in and time out which normally happens perhaps around 30 minutes to one hour before planned departure.
Airfields
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
Or also known as airports, this includes major airfields, military air
force bases, ultra-light landing strips, water ports, hospital roofs. Airfields have their specific and unique codes, IATA and ICAO codes aside from having their own names, country, coordinates and other notes about the said airport.
But these names are not constant, they can be changed overtime. Then there are also airfields which are user defined. Most of the time helicopter pilots create these airfields because they fly and land on specific smaller airfields which most of the time doesn't have a unique ICAO or IATA code.
Pilots / Crews
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
Of course, there's no airplane on air without pilots! Autopilot might be available but no Airline operator would like to send out a plane without actual human pilots, that's for sure.
So for pilots, the main essential details needed are just name and their capacity or rule when on the aircraft. However, these can be expanded to Company which he or she is flying with, then there's ID, email address, cellular number, airline roster name and notes.
I'll deal with what an airline roster name is and how it is essential to the logbook software.
mccPILOTLOG
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
While there are so many different logbook programs available online, that also means we got lot of competitors but I am still proud to say that even if we receive lots of bugs reports and complaints, we are still getting new users in a daily basis.
My boss who is a captain at a huge company in Europe started this as a hobby, when he was flying, he was also developing this tool in Windows environment so he can personally create a logbook out of it with his own preferences.
He then started sharing it to his friends, colleagues and without him noticing, he was earning money out from it. Then he outsourced the Development so the software can run on both Mac and Windows operating system. Now we have more than 50,000 users of this logbook.
But aside from this logbook software, the boss also created other mobile apps to be a help to the main desktop software. Then there's another application for crew members, the flight attendants and the rest of the aero business. He even write books with different language translations!
I was planning of adding a separate section here in this blog on how I came to join the company but I guess I will have to separate that on another blog.
mccPILOTLOG's Main Functions
Actually, I can tell you more about the software and each single function but it would also mean I can write an entire user guide booklet for that because there are lots and lots of functionalities about the software. That is why, today, I am only sharing to you the most basic functions and probably the gunners of the software as to why more and more customers are signing up for it.
1. Airline Sync
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
While a pilot can manually add a flight on the software which is a basic function in a pilot logbook software such as mccPILOTLOG should have, there's also an easier way to log the flights and that is to synchronize the software to capture data from the company airline portal.
What is Company Airline Portal anyway?
Video credits: mccPILOTLOG via YouTube.com
In layman's term, it basically means all employees of a specific airline company has access to their rosters and scheduling through their portal or their website where a pilot has been given access to using their username and login password, some may even have a security feature such as OTP and RSA like the complicated Emirates Airlines, Swiss Airlines and even JetBlue (which by the way changes their portal link every once in awhile which causes disruption with the logbook sync connection).
The software then can connect to the portal, it automates the login process, grab the schedule from the raw html file published by their company and saves it to the software.
This process will allow the pilot to gather around 50 flight records in just a few minutes instead of taking hours manually inputting each single data. Isn't it cool?
Now the best thing about the software is that it allows online and offline airline data import. Online is this process where the software works like the pilot themselves, logging into their company website and navigating to their schedules. While the offline is possible with the use of pdf, txt and even email data fed into the software.
Currently, the software supports 300 airline companies using 80 different Crew Management systems.
2. Mobile Sync
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
Another function that we take pride on is the mobile synchronization. It makes the mobile device of a specific pilot an aid to have a copy of his logbook data on the portable device while on the go.
The software is supported by different mobile operating systems such as iOS, Android, Windows and even Blackberry. They can add flights on the mobile and synchronize it so these flights will reach the desktop application.
In the same way, it can also capture endorsement signatures from their instructors after passing a training. Pictures from the mobile will arrive in the desktop application too! What's the use of it? Well reports and logbooks need those data. Read on the fourth point.
3. Online Backup
Perhaps the most number of inquiries we have received is the loss of data because of computer hardware failure, hard drive crashed, PC stolen and a lot more reasoning.
Video credits: mccPILOTLOG via YouTube.com
The best thing about the software is it keeps a backup of the database depending on how the user had set it to. It has options to back up the data in each single time the user uses the app, another option is to back up the data every eight days and so on and so forth.
In this way, whenever the unfortunate event occurs, users can immediately just pull their latest backup from the server straight into their newly installed software. There's however a catch to that. Since this is a business in particular, the ability for the software to keep a copy of the database on the server would require a premium license!
4. Printing Logbook and Reports
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
The last on my list but definitely not the last on its importance because there's no reason why a pilot creates a bunch of flight records without printing them. Each pilot has to do so because they have to report it to each of their official aviation authority.
The mccPILOTLOG software has 40 different logbook formats from various publishers and official state publications. However, these are still unofficial and a pilot need to ask their authority to sign it so to make it official for submission. The use of self-adhesive labels is definitely recommended.
Logbooks are entire records of the flights while Reports on the other hand are usually generated statistics of the software such as the amount of hours per aircraft in a monthly or weekly basis. There's even a report which prints Google Maps and shows which country this pilot has flown in the entire month and even annually.
Image credits: www.mccpilotlog.net
That's the top guns of mccPILOTLOG but the list is just perhaps 5% of the entire functionality of the software. There are more functionality that it offers as well as support too! I am proud to be part of this team and to be the pioneering support as well. Today, we are composed of four support members and I have lead these heads to be able to properly answer inquiries and provide educational information to these professional pilots.
Blog entry by Jean Beltran-Figues
