Usage log fields

What it is

A usage log records one session of asset use against a booking. For aircraft, that is one flight (or one leg of a multi-leg booking). Multiple logs can exist on a single booking (e.g. three flights in a week-long booking).

Who can use it

Members can log their own usage against their own bookings, and against maintenance bookings.
Admins can log usage on their own bookings, on maintenance bookings, and on another member’s booking once it has ended. The last is how an admin records a flight a member flew; the form then names that member as pilot. See Record a flight that was not booked.

Any member who can see the booking can view its logs in the booking detail. Tap a flight’s row in the booking’s Usage Logs section to open Flight details, a read-only sheet with everything recorded for it: times, meter readings, landings, fuel and oil, notes and the photo. It is the same sheet the asset’s Usage History opens, and it stays available once the booking is completed and the edit button has gone. The edit, delete and photo controls on the row keep doing what they did. Photo visibility is gated separately; see Usage photo privacy.

Where to find it

Booking detail → Log Usage button (the form it opens is titled Log Flight).
Route: /bookings/:bookingId (or /syndicates/:syndicateId/bookings/:bookingId).
The log form is also reached from the flight entries in the per-asset Usage history.

Fields / options

The form adapts to which measures the syndicate captures and to per-asset overrides. Not every field is shown in every configuration. Readings and times are labelled with your syndicate’s start and end names; this page gives the defaults.

Always shown

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Date	Date picker	Yes	Defaults to the booking start date in the pilot’s local timezone, capped at today. You can back-date (the booking must cover the date).
Notes	Free text	No	Anything the pilot wants recorded. Plain text only.

Meter readings (shown when the engine meter is captured)

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Start reading	Number	Yes	Labelled with your syndicate’s name for it: by default the meter’s name and “Start”, as in “Tacho Start” or “Hobbs Start”. Pre-filled with the highest reading logged on the aircraft by the time the booking started, so a second leg starts where the first ended: see Previous-tacho pre-fill. A line under it reads “Last flight ended at reading” when the Start differs from where the flight before it ended, or “The aircraft’s opening reading is reading” on the first flight on an aircraft since it was set up in Syndik8. The line shows on a new flight and when editing one; an edited flight is measured against the flights before it, leaving out the flight itself and its booking’s later legs.
End reading	Number	Yes	Labelled “Tacho End” (or “Hobbs End”) by default, or your syndicate’s name for it. Must be above Start: below is refused, and equal is refused as “the meter has not moved”. Pre-filled with the Start reading less its last digit (1234.5 gives 1234), so you type the tail rather than the whole figure — and the form cannot be saved with the pre-fill untouched; tapping in keeps the value and puts the cursor after the last digit.

Beneath the End field is a read-out of the meter delta — the hours the two readings describe — with a minus and a plus either side of it. The figure updates as you type. The two controls move the End reading by 0.1 each tap, so the row behaves as “adjust the hours” while what gets stored stays the meter reading you state. Minus stops at zero rather than taking End below Start. The read-out shows a dash when the hours cannot be worked out: either reading blank or half-typed, or an End below the Start.

The difference (End − Start) is the meter delta. Whether it drives the charge depends on the billed measure.

Clock times (shown when block time is captured)

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Block start	Time (HH:MM)	Yes	The start-of-taxi time. Labelled “Brakes off” by default, or “Off blocks”, “Engine start”, “Engine on” or a custom name, as your syndicate chose.
Block end	Time (HH:MM)	Yes	The end-of-taxi time. Labelled “Brakes on” by default, or “On blocks”, “Engine stop”, “Engine off” or a custom name.

Block time = block end − block start. The form lists the time fields in the order of the flight (block start, airborne start, airborne end, block end) and shows the block time and airborne time together beneath the last of them. Airborne time is a separate, measured value: Landing − Takeoff when both wheels times are recorded, otherwise zero. It is never derived from block time, and taxi minutes only prefill the bracketing times.

Aircraft-specific fields

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Airborne start	Time (HH:MM)	Yes, when airborne time is captured and Flight is selected	Wheels up, labelled “Takeoff” by default, or “Wheels up” or a custom name. Hidden for ground runs. Captures the measured time aloft for airborne billing.
Airborne end	Time (HH:MM)	Yes, when airborne time is captured and Flight is selected	Wheels down, labelled “Landing” by default, or “Wheels down” or a custom name. Hidden for ground runs. Hidden for ground runs. Airborne time is end − start; zero if either is missing.
Pilot in Command	Member picker + free text	Yes	The form will not save with it empty, new or edited; it reads “Enter the pilot in command” until a member is picked or a name typed. Defaults to your own name: your display name, or your first and last name if you have not set one. If you have set neither, the box starts empty and the flight records your account without a name — never your email address, because the name typed here is kept in the aircraft’s technical log for as long as the aircraft exists. You can pick another member or type a non-member name. The member list offers people by the same rule, so a member who has set no name is not suggested; type theirs in by hand.
Pre-flight By	Member picker + free text	No	Defaults to the Pilot in Command.
Departure	ICAO code (free text)	Yes, for a flight	E.g. `EGMC`. Typing part of a code or an airfield’s name offers the matching airfields under the box, as `EGMC (London Southend Airport)`; choosing one enters its code. A code not on the list is kept as typed. Required for any flight that took off; exempt for a ground run (Ground run: no takeoff selected). On a new flight it starts filled in with where the aircraft last landed, or its home airfield when nothing has been logged; editable. A line under it reads “Last landed at code” when the departure differs from the last landing. See Departure pre-fill.
Arrival	ICAO code (free text)	Yes, for a flight	Required for any flight that took off. Offers matching airfields as you type, as the departure does. Never filled in for you. Decides whether event fees apply; see Behaviour rules. A blank arrival is never treated as “home”.
Full-stop landings	Numeric integer	One for a flight, zero for a ground run	Set by the Flight / Ground run choice, with no unrestricted number field. Each flight leg has exactly 1 full stop. Historical counts are preserved on unrelated edits; changing counts or the flight choice requires a valid set.
Touch-and-gos	Integer	No	Defaults to 0, a nonnegative whole number. The box takes digits only, and an empty box counts as 0. Disabled during a ground run; choose Flight: one full-stop landing to edit it.
Fuel Added	Number + unit selector	No	Units configured on the asset (litres / US gallons / imperial gallons). Leave blank for no uplift, or enter a finite number from 0 to 10,000 in the selected unit. A larger or invalid quantity is refused, never reduced or removed.
Oil Added	Number + unit selector	No	Units configured on the asset.
Flight: one full-stop landing / Ground run: no takeoff	Choice	Explicit ground-run choice required	Same choice for all aircraft capture settings. Ground run is unavailable while touch-and-gos are nonzero, sets full stops to zero, drops airborne times, and retains meter/block readings. Returning to flight restores a full-stop count of one and requires any configured airborne times. No duration or zero counter infers a ground run.
Any defects?	Attestation, plus a list of defects	Yes, for aircraft flights that took off	A line reading Nil defects, or the count once defects have been added, with an Add a squawk button beside it and the defects added so far listed under it. The pilot-in-command signs the line as it reads; adding or removing a defect clears the signature. Hidden for ground runs (Ground run: no takeoff selected) and maintenance logs. The stored declaration is derived: `no known defects` with an empty list, `defect reported` with anything on it.

Attribution

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Used by	Member picker with free-text fallback	Yes	Shown on every log. Defaults to you, recorded as your account rather than a typed name, so the box shows your name by the same rule as Pilot in Command and is empty if you have set none. Pick a syndicate member or type a free-text name for a non-member operator (for example, a workshop pilot or an external mechanic). The asset’s tech log reads this field, not the booker, to answer “who operated this asset on this day.”

For most flights, the default (current user) is correct. See Log a ground run or ferry flight for when to override it.

Photo

Field	Type	Required	Notes
Meter photo (end)	Image	No	Attached to the log as evidence. See Hobbs photos.

A start-meter photo can be captured as a user aid during logging but is not saved to the log.

Behaviour rules

Start ≤ End. The form blocks submission and shows an inline error when End < Start.
No time may be later than now. A flight log records a flight that has happened, so a block start or end, takeoff or landing later than now is refused with, for example, Landing cannot be later than now, and Log Usage stays greyed out. A time before the booking began is accepted, though the soft warning that some times fall outside the booking window can still appear. The server applies the same rule when the log reaches it, judged by its own clock and allowing five minutes for a phone clock running fast; a log refused there after being saved offline is removed from the phone and the pilot is sent an Offline Change Not Saved notification.
Messages use your syndicate’s names. A missing or out-of-order time is reported in the same words as the fields, for example Brakes on must be after Brakes off, Takeoff cannot be before Brakes off or Brakes off and Brakes on times required.
A flight that looks logged twice is questioned, not refused. Before a new log saves, the form asks Already logged? if its times overlap a flight already logged on the booking, or its start and end readings are the same as one, typically the same flight logged on the watch and the phone. Consecutive legs, where one starts at the moment or on the reading the other ended, never count. Readings that only partly overlap, at different times or with no times recorded, are not asked about: they are two flights, and the later one does not follow on, which holds the booking as a tacho-continuity conflict. See If the flight is already logged.
Taxi-derived time prefill (aircraft). For a new flight, when both block and airborne time are captured and taxi minutes is set, entering one of the four bracketing times fills its empty counterpart: block start ↔ airborne start and airborne end ↔ block end, each offset by the taxi time (taxi-out runs from block start to airborne start, taxi-in from airborne end to block end). You can enter two of the four and the form derives the rest where the estimate fits within known block times. Ground runs do not prefill airborne times. Editing a saved log or checking a held Watch capture preserves recorded times and blanks; editing one time changes only that field. A value you set by hand is never overwritten by derivation, and only the direct counterpart of the field you edit is touched.
Required fields depend on which measures are captured:
- Engine meter captured: the start and end readings are required.
- Block time captured: the block start and end are required.
- Airborne time captured: the airborne start and end are required (a flight that took off must record both, so airborne time is real rather than zero).
- A flight (one that took off) also requires Departure and Arrival; a ground run does not.
Event fees are home-airfield fees. Landing and touch-and-go fees apply only when the flight’s Arrival matches the asset’s home airfield, resolved from the asset’s configured home airfield and falling back to a syndicate-wide default if one is set. If the arrival is a different airfield, or no home airfield is configured, no event fees are charged for that log (the time-based usage charge is unaffected). The comparison ignores case and surrounding spaces. Because every flight requires an arrival, a blank arrival is never treated as “home”.
The defect declaration is mandatory for aircraft flights, and the pilot cannot change it after save. An aircraft log where the flight took off cannot be saved until the pilot has signed the declaration line. Defects are written up on the same form, in a card that rises over it, and are saved with the flight — never before, so a flight you abandon leaves no defect report behind. Each one is recorded against that flight, which is what lets the tech log say what a reported defect actually was. The declaration is captured once, at the moment of logging; the edit form doesn’t show it and never resends it, so editing the log afterwards leaves it as it was. Once saved, it is shown on the flight’s row in the booking’s Usage Logs section as “No known defects” or “Defect reported”, with the defects raised on that flight listed under it; where a flight declares a defect and nothing describes it, the row says “no squawk recorded”. A log with no declaration (a ground run) shows neither. A pilot who isn’t an admin of the syndicate also cannot delete a log that reported a defect, so its Delete button is not offered to them. An admin can correct a mistaken declaration in place with Correct declaration on the flight’s row, while the booking is confirmed or completed. The flight stays logged; a reason is optional and is recorded with the change, and the correction needs a connection. See Pilot-in-command responsibility.
Charge preview is computed on the server and shown when you are online. The figure comes from the same calculation finalisation uses, requested as you fill the form, so the preview and the eventual charge agree. Offline, the form shows that an estimate is available online rather than calculating one on the device. It reflects the member’s effective rate at the time of logging.
The saved log is not a financial record. The charge only becomes a ledger entry when the booking is finalised. See Finalisation rules.
Edits create an audit trail. Editing a saved log stamps the editor’s identity and the moment of the edit; the original values are not kept separately. The only user-visible sign of an edit is an “(edited)” marker on the log entry in the booking detail.
A flight on a finalised booking is corrected, not edited. Only an admin can change it, with Correct flight on the flight’s row: it asks for a reason, opens the same form titled Correct Flight, keeps the values it replaces in the audit trail, and changes no money. The charge is settled on the booking afterwards; see Correct a finalised booking.

The same fuel limit applies when Quick Capture opens the full Log Flight form for review. The server also checks it when a queued offline log uploads. Existing logs retain their original quantities; if an older log has an oversized quantity, correct it before saving an edit through the Log Flight form. Other updates, such as changes to account identities, leave the recorded fuel intact.

Learn

Log your first flight: end-to-end walkthrough, from booking to saved log.
Log a ground run or ferry flight against a maintenance booking: when the fields on this page are used from a maintenance booking.