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Log your first flight

This tutorial walks you through logging your first flight. By the end, you’ll have a confirmed booking on the calendar, a usage log tied to that booking, a photo of the meter saved as evidence, and the booking closed with its charge posted: a proper record, finished the same day. Plan on around ten minutes, give or take, depending on how long you spend lingering on the calendar admiring your weekend.

The only thing you need before you start is to be signed in as a member of a syndicate with at least one aircraft and a confirmed rate. If you’re reading this fresh off Join a syndicate as a member, you’re good.

A note on words: this tutorial says “Hobbs” throughout because that’s the commonest engine meter on GA aircraft. If your syndicate’s admin has set the engine meter label to Tacho (or a custom word), you’ll see that word in the app wherever this tutorial says Hobbs; the flow is identical. The words for each start and end are the syndicate’s choice too: this tutorial uses the defaults, Hobbs Start and Hobbs End for the meter and Brakes off and Brakes on for the times, and your syndicate may use others, such as Off blocks and On blocks. Both are set on the syndicate’s Usage capture screen.

Two ways in, and when each appears

Section titled “Two ways in, and when each appears”

There are two ways to log a flight, and both are meant. Which one the booking offers depends on when you open it:

  • From two hours before the booking starts, the booking screen offers I’m flying now. That opens Quick Capture: you enter the start reading on the ramp before departure, and the end reading after you land, and the app hands you the Log Flight form with both already filled in. This is the route for the flight itself — Step 2 below.
  • Once the booking is under way or has passed, the booking screen shows Log Usage, which opens the Log Flight form directly. This is the route for logging after the fact — that evening on the sofa, or a flight you forgot to log at the time — and it is where Step 3 picks up. While the booking is under way you’ll see both buttons; either works.

If you open a booking that hasn’t started yet and go looking for Log Usage, it isn’t there yet. That’s by design: from two hours before the start, use I’m flying now, or come back once the booking has started. A booking more than two hours away shows neither button.

Step 1: Book the aircraft

Section titled “Step 1: Book the aircraft”

Every usage log lives inside a booking. You can’t log a flight that isn’t tied to a booking, so that’s where we start. Open the syndicate (your default one loads on launch) and tap the Calendar tab.

Calendar tab on the week view with no bookings yetCalendar tab on the week view with no bookings yet

The calendar opens on the month view by default, giving a bird’s-eye read of the upcoming month. For booking a specific slot it’s easier to work in the hourly grid, so use the view selector at the top to switch to Week.

Now pick a slot. Saturday afternoon is a fine choice for a first flight. On web, click on the start hour and drag down to the end. On mobile, long-press the start hour and then drag. As you drag, a translucent block follows your finger; that’s your booking-in-waiting.

Dragging a time range across Saturday afternoon on the calendarDragging a time range across Saturday afternoon on the calendar

Release, and the Create Booking dialog opens with your start and end times pre-filled. Have a quick look:

  • Asset: the aircraft is picked for you if there’s only one. If there’s more than one, pick the one you actually plan to fly.
  • Start Time and End Time: nudge them by fifteen minutes if you need to. Your drag got you close, not exact.
  • Pencil in (tentative): leave this unticked. A tentative booking is a non-binding hold, which is useful when you’re not sure yet; today, you are sure. See Tentative vs confirmed bookings if you’re curious about the distinction.

Tap Create. The dialog closes, a “Booking created successfully” snackbar slides up (“Booking requested” if an admin must approve it first), and your slot now appears on the calendar as a solid block with your name on it.

Calendar showing the newly created confirmed booking as a solid blockCalendar showing the newly created confirmed booking as a solid block

That’s the “visible reservation” moment: the slot is yours. If your syndicate requires admin approval for member bookings, the booking will read pending instead of confirmed until an admin signs off, wait for an admin to approve it before continuing to Step 2 or Step 3. Quick Capture and Log Usage are available only on confirmed bookings; a pending request does not offer either action.

Step 2: On the day — Quick Capture from the ramp

Section titled “Step 2: On the day — Quick Capture from the ramp”

Saturday comes round. You’re at the aircraft, pre-flight done, about to start the engine. Open the booking: tap it on the calendar, or find it under the Bookings tab. Because the booking starts within the next two hours, the screen offers I’m flying now, with a line underneath saying you’ll record your start readings now and log the rest when you land. Tap it.

Quick Capture opens on its first step, Ready to fly?. It asks for three things:

  • Hobbs Start: pre-filled, greyed, with the aircraft’s current reading — the figure the last flight left it at. If it matches the drum, leave it. If it doesn’t, tap the field; it clears, and you type what you see.
  • Brakes off (or your syndicate’s word for it): the time you’re leaving the stand. It defaults to now.
  • Departure: the airfield you’re leaving from. It starts at where the aircraft last landed (or its home airfield, if nothing has been logged yet), which is usually right. If you’re leaving from somewhere else, tap it and pick from the list; the app suggests the nearest ones first.

There’s a camera icon beside the meter field for a start photo. It’s optional and it isn’t saved to the log; it’s there so you can check your reading later if you need to. Tap Start Flight. That’s the ramp done — put the phone away and go flying.

While your flight is open, a Flight in progress card sits on your Home screen and on the syndicate’s Dashboard with an End Flight button. That card, not the booking, is where you pick the flight up again. (If you’d rather not open the booking at all, the same Home card offers Start Flight in the two hours either side of a confirmed booking, and takes you to the same first step. Once a flight is logged on the booking, the card still offers Start Flight, for another leg, and shows beneath it how many are logged, such as 1 leg logged, so a flight you already logged on your watch doesn’t get logged again.)

Back on the ground, tap End Flight on that card. The second step, Flight complete?, shows what you recorded before departure and asks for the rest:

  • Hobbs End: the reading after shutdown. It arrives pre-filled with your start reading less its last digit — a start of 1234.5 gives 1234 — so you tap in and type the last digit or two rather than the whole number. It won’t accept the pre-fill untouched, and it won’t accept a reading equal to the start: the meter has to have moved.
  • Brakes on: the time you came to a stop. Defaults to now.
  • Arrival: where you landed. If it’s your home airfield, this is what makes landing fees apply.
  • Touch-and-gos: a counter starting at 0. Tap plus once for each touch-and-go you flew.
  • Flight: one full-stop landing: already selected, and once you’ve picked an arrival it names it, for example Flight: one full-stop landing at EGMC. Leave it selected: it records 1 full-stop landing on top of your touch-and-gos. The other choice, Ground run: no takeoff, is only for an engine run where the aircraft never left the ground.

Photograph the meter here if you can (Step 4 explains why), then tap End Flight. The Log Flight form opens with everything you’ve captured already in place, ready for a final look. Skip ahead to Step 3 to see what’s on it — most of the work is done.

Step 3: Log Flight after the fact

Section titled “Step 3: Log Flight after the fact”

Didn’t use Quick Capture? No matter. Open the booking once it has started or passed; the screen now shows a Log Usage button near the bottom.

Booking detail screen with the Log Usage button near the bottomBooking detail screen with the Log Usage button near the bottom

Tap it. The Log Flight form opens with fields for departure and arrival airfields, touch-and-gos, the Flight or ground-run choice, meter readings, a pilot-in-command picker, and a notes box. If you came here from Quick Capture, it’s the same form with the readings, times, route and landing counts already filled in; check them and carry on down.

Empty Log Flight form with the date, departure and arrival fields, the touch-and-gos count, Flight selected, recording one full-stop landingEmpty Log Flight form with the date, departure and arrival fields, the touch-and-gos count, Flight selected, recording one full-stop landing

Work down the form. Don’t be put off by the length; most of the fields are either pre-filled, optional, or trivial.

  • Date: today. Back-date it only if the flight happened earlier in the booking window.
  • Departure and Arrival: ICAO codes for where you took off and landed. Both are required for a flight. Start typing a code or an airfield’s name and the matching airfields appear in a list above or below the box, whichever side has more room; tap one to fill in its code, or type the code of a strip that isn’t listed. The departure arrives filled in with where the aircraft last landed; change it if you left from somewhere else. The arrival is always yours to fill in. The arrival also decides whether home-airfield landing fees apply: land back at base and they do, land away and they don’t.
  • Touch-and-gos: the number of touch-and-gos you flew, if any. It starts at 0.
  • Flight: one full-stop landing or Ground run: no takeoff: Flight is already selected; leave it for any flight that took off. Ground run: no takeoff is only for an engine run where the aircraft never left the ground.
  • Flight records exactly 1 full-stop landing. A circuit session with three touch-and-gos and a final landing is 3 T&Gs and 1 full stop; a go-around is neither. If you land, stop and take off again, record another flight leg separately.
  • Hobbs Start: the Hobbs reading on the aircraft before you started the engine. It arrives pre-filled with the highest reading logged on the aircraft by the time your booking started; correct it if the drum said otherwise. Type the number as you’d read it on the drum: 1234.5.
  • Hobbs End: the reading after shutdown. It arrives pre-filled with the start reading less its last digit (1234.5 gives 1234), so tap in and type the tail. It must be above the start: below is refused, and equal is refused too — the meter has to have moved. The form won’t save with the pre-fill left as it is.
  • Pilot in Command: pick yourself from the member list, or type a name if the PIC was a guest.
  • Notes: anything else worth remembering. “Trim runaway on approach” belongs here too, alongside the squawk.
  • Any defects?: the last thing on the form, below Notes and the cost estimate, appears for every aircraft flight that took off. It reads Nil defects with an Add a squawk button beside it, and a line you tick to confirm it. You must tick that line before the form will save. If you found something, tap Add a squawk first: a card rises over the form, you write the defect up, and it is listed under the line — which then names the count, and has to be ticked again for what it now says. The defects are saved with the flight.

The header of the Log Flight form shows a live read-out: “Billed on Hobbs time” and, once you’ve got both meter values in, a computed duration. That’s the charge the treasurer will see when they finalise, with no surprises. This read-out belongs to the Log Flight form; Quick Capture’s two steps don’t show it, which is one reason Quick Capture hands you the form for a last look before saving.

Step 4: Photograph the meter

Section titled “Step 4: Photograph the meter”

Next to each meter field sits a small camera icon. Hold it for a moment and it tells you what it is for: Photograph the meter, framing just the one dial. Tap the one next to Hobbs End. (Quick Capture’s second step has the same icon beside its end meter, and a photo taken there arrives on the form with everything else.)

Camera icon next to the Hobbs End fieldCamera icon next to the Hobbs End field

Your device’s camera opens. Line up the Hobbs drum in frame, tap the shutter, confirm. The camera icon next to the meter field swaps to a green tick to confirm the photo is attached and ready to upload when you save. You can tap it again to re-take if the first shot was blurry.

The first time, the app asks whether meter photos may go to AI services from Cloudflare, Google and OpenAI. Choose either answer: if you don’t allow it, nothing is sent and you type the figure. While Syndik8 reads the Hobbs value off the photo, the field shows Reading…, and the reading is filled in when it is sure of it; if it isn’t, the field is left for you to type, and the photo is attached either way. Whatever you type wins: tap into the field before the reading arrives and the reading is dropped. When you’re online this works the same on iPhone, Android and the web (where tapping the camera icon opens a file picker instead). Offline, only an iPhone reads the photo; on Android and the web you type the reading.

The start-meter photo is optional and isn’t saved; it’s purely a workflow aid, handy if you want to double-check your reading later. The end-meter photo is the one that matters for the ledger.

Log Flight form with a green confirmation tick next to the Hobbs End field, showing the meter photo is attached and ready to uploadLog Flight form with a green confirmation tick next to the Hobbs End field, showing the meter photo is attached and ready to upload

Step 5: Save

Section titled “Step 5: Save”

Scroll to the bottom. If you haven’t signed the “Any defects?” line yet, the form will highlight it before saving, so scroll up and tick it first. Then tap Log Usage. The button reads Log Usage rather than Save throughout the screen; the form is literally logging usage.

You’ll see a “Usage logged successfully” snackbar. Exactly one thing follows, and which one depends on your answers:

  • Any defects you added are saved with the flight, each recorded against it. Nothing opens for them: you wrote them on the form.
  • Otherwise, if you ticked I paid for this fuel personally, the expense form opens so you can claim the fuel back. Again, you close the booking later.
  • Otherwise, the close sheet opens over the Log Flight form. That’s Step 6.

For a first flight with no defects and no fuel to claim, it’s the close sheet. The exception is a syndicate that has turned off Pilots finalise their own bookings: then no sheet opens, an admin finalises the booking, and you can skip Step 6.

Step 6: Close the booking

Section titled “Step 6: Close the booking”

Saving the flight doesn’t charge you anything yet. That happens when the booking is closed, and since this is your booking and it has started, the app asks straight away: a sheet opens over the Log Flight form, which is still showing behind it.

The sheet, titled Is that your last flight on registration?, shows what closing will post: Flights and their cost, a Minimum-usage shortfall line if your syndicate charges one and you flew less than the minimum, and the Total. If you’re closing before the booking’s end time, it also tells you when your booking will now end: the rest of the slot goes back on the calendar for someone else.

This was your only flight on the booking, so tap Close booking and post the total. The booking is now finalised and the charge is on your balance. Had you been planning another flight on the same booking, you’d tap Not yet, I’ll log more and close it later, from the booking’s Close booking button or the Finished with registration? card on your Home screen. That is also how you close it if the squawk form or the expense form opened instead of the sheet.

Either way, once you’ve answered the sheet the log screen closes and you’re back on the booking. The usage log you just created appears in the booking’s usage list, complete with Hobbs delta and landing count. If you came in through Quick Capture, the Flight in progress card is gone from your Home screen too.

Booking detail screen showing the newly logged usage entry with Hobbs delta and landingsBooking detail screen showing the newly logged usage entry with Hobbs delta and landings

See Close a booking for the details, including what happens offline.

What you just did

Section titled “What you just did”
  • Created a confirmed booking on the calendar.
  • Logged usage against that booking, including meter readings, landings, and PIC — from the ramp with Quick Capture, or afterwards from the booking.
  • Attached an end-meter photo as evidence.
  • Closed the booking, which posted the charge to your balance and freed any time you didn’t use.

Where to go next

Section titled “Where to go next”