I’ve been looking in this forum as well as outside of the internet, and the information is so over the place with different opinions.
I am betting on experience of the flyers in this forum to give a simple straight answer regarding logging of aircraft maintenance logbook.
What is a correct way to log aircraft hours? (NOT pilot logbook, this seems to be pretty clear – it’s block to block)
Flight time? (When wheels leave the ground, to when they touch ground? Called “Flight” in Skydemon)
Engine time? from the time you start the engine, to the time you shut it down?
Tach time?
Which one do you use to calculate maintenance hours (50h, 100h service)?
Then I heard that people actually have seperate logbooks for engine and propeller… not in my case. I just got a single book, with a few pages for engine, and prop, and no seperate logging of hours for them.
Any official references to EASA documentation would be appreciated.
Technical aircraft logging is still a bit country (of registration) specific.
In some cases, the technical aircract logbook also double serves as the journey logbook, which IS governed by EASA.
boscomantico wrote:
Technical aircraft logging is still a bit country (of registration) specific.
It is a D- reg
OK, then it should have one of these.
Just fill in all the flights you do, using actual air-time only. This is what will be used by you / the certifying staff / CAO to determine any flighttime-related maintenance needs.
boscomantico wrote:
OK, then it should have one of these.Just fill in all the flights you do, using actual air-time only. This is what will be used by you / the certifying staff / CAO to determine any flighttime-related maintenance needs.
So cross referencing of Pilot Log book vs. Aircraft “journey”/“Bordbuch” is not possible then. Since the pilot logs block hours and the aircraft “Bordbuch” is airborne time, when on D-reg? I´m not saying it´s wrong, just clarifying that point.
Not exactly possible, indeed.
Airborne time is logged for maintenance in all cases I know of. The exception is with non trusted renters ie most renters and then you log stuff like hobbs time… See other threads.
Yeager wrote:
So cross referencing of Pilot Log book vs. Aircraft “journey”/“Bordbuch” is not possible then. Since the pilot logs block hours and the aircraft “Bordbuch” is airborne time, when on D-reg? I´m not saying it´s wrong, just clarifying that point.
Yes, you are correct.
So the engine time used for calculating TBO in EASA-land is going to be quite a bit lower than the actual engine running time? Or do people keep separate engine and airframe time logs?
In North America many (most) aircraft were (are?) delivered with a hobbs meter that runs whenever aircraft power os on. There doesn‘t seem to be any regulatory requirement there to use either hobbs or tach time, which only starts running above about 1‘000 rpm. Hobbs is used especially for rental since it gives the highest time reading, but some people also use it for maintenance reference. I‘ve never heard of using airborne time for any aircraft hours related maintenance in North America but that might just be my experience.
chflyer wrote:
So the engine time used for calculating TBO in EASA-land is going to be quite a bit lower than the actual engine running time?
Yes! The same situation in Sweden. (And actually was before EASA as well.)
For airplanes which do not specify airframe time/cycle limits as airworthiness limitations, this is mostly a non issue. If the airframe/engine/propeller is time/cycle limited, the maintenance instructions will define how the time/cycles are to be recorded. I can think of one jet engine which is both a powerplant, and APU. As a powerplant it is time and cycle limited. As an APU, you can run it as long as you want without limit.
If there is a directive about how airframe/engine/propeller time is to be logged, than do it that way. Otherwise, for private GA airplanes, it’s rather non critical. These airframes and engines are much more “on condition” than time critical. For my experience, their need for maintenance is much more based upon being too idle, rather than timing out. Flying schools and other commercial operators will be different, and have established means of recording times. But yes, establishing airframe/engine maintenance for a private GA airplane based upon pilot logged time, is needlessly penalizing to the airplane maintenance schedule.
