On 8/26/04 8:25 PM, in article jcvXc.239753$eM2.90248@attbi_s51, "Ben
Jackson" wrote:

In article m,
Wizard of Draws wrote:
I have my logbook duplicated in Excel, but now that I've added my instrument
rating, it might be nice to have Excel keep track of my currency on
approaches. Maybe flag a cell as red or green depending upon my status...

I'd make a cell somewhere with the cutoff date for approaches, which is:

=DATE(YEAR(TODAY()), MONTH(TODAY())-6, 1)

(Excel seems to tolerate negative months and compensates correctly)
You can name that cell CUTOFF by putting the name in the box to the
left of the formula entry (the box will normally have the name of the
cell as A1 or whatever). You can put this cell on another sheet in the
same workbook.

Then add a column like =IF(A1 = CUTOFF, B1, 0) where A is the column
with the date of the flight and B1 is the number of approaches. Then
the sum of this column is the number of approaches after the cutoff.
Then you can hide that column so it doesn't clutter the display.

You could do something similar for landing currency. Figuring the cutoff
is easier since it's a straight 90 days (and in Excel dates are numbers
where 1.0 = 1 day). It's just =TODAY()-90.

Thanks Ben, but I'm not quite sure that's what I'm looking for. Part of my
confusion could be how I'm interpreting the calculation of "last 6 months"
for currency, so please bear with me. There's also a good possibility that
I'm misunderstanding your formula workings. As I said, I'm not proficient
with the program.

I assume from my reading that as long as I have 6 approaches within the last
6 months, I'm IFR legal.
I'm also assuming that that time frame keeps coming forward as I do
approaches. In other words, if I go out and do 3 approaches this weekend,
and then another 3 next weekend, the 6 month timeframe will advance ahead 1
week. I don't interpret the 6 month timeframe as a static calendar window
starting from your checkride date.

So... I'm looking for the Excel logbook to tell me if I'm IFR current every
time I open it, by looking back 6 months from *that day* and counting the
number of approaches.
I appreciate your patience.
--
Jeff 'The Wizard of Draws' Bucchino
Cartoons with a Touch of Magic�
www.wizardofdraws.com
www.cartoonclipart.com