Launch point logging software flight accounting

Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.


rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

On Nov 26, 5:05*pm, stevehaley wrote:
Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.

rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

Good idea.

It strikes me that if both gliders and tugs carried GPS loggers, all
flight data could be automatically captured except for matching
flights to member names which should be fairly easy to do manually.
Tows would be matched to glider flights since the logs are time
stamped. A tow starting at exactly the same time as a glider flight
would link them together.

A software package that created a daily screen from the logs data
where pilot names could be entered manually would make billing easier
- and a lot more accurate.

The manual operations required to download gps files from all the aircraft,
loading into a computer and adding pilot billing accounts would take more
time than transferring a manual log to a spreadsheet.

The trick is to get the spreadsheet data into the accounting and billing
system.

"bildan" wrote in message
...
On Nov 26, 5:05 pm, stevehaley wrote:
Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.

rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

Good idea.

It strikes me that if both gliders and tugs carried GPS loggers, all
flight data could be automatically captured except for matching
flights to member names which should be fairly easy to do manually.
Tows would be matched to glider flights since the logs are time
stamped. A tow starting at exactly the same time as a glider flight
would link them together.

A software package that created a daily screen from the logs data
where pilot names could be entered manually would make billing easier
- and a lot more accurate.

The manual operations required to download gps files from all the aircraft,
loading into a computer and adding pilot billing accounts would take more
time than transferring a manual log to a spreadsheet.

The trick is to get the spreadsheet data into the accounting and billing
system.

"bildan" wrote in message
...
On Nov 26, 5:05 pm, stevehaley wrote:
Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.

rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

Good idea.

It strikes me that if both gliders and tugs carried GPS loggers, all
flight data could be automatically captured except for matching
flights to member names which should be fairly easy to do manually.
Tows would be matched to glider flights since the logs are time
stamped. A tow starting at exactly the same time as a glider flight
would link them together.

A software package that created a daily screen from the logs data
where pilot names could be entered manually would make billing easier
- and a lot more accurate.

On Nov 27, 5:50*am, bildan wrote:
On Nov 26, 5:05*pm, stevehaley wrote:





Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.

rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

Good idea.

It strikes me that if both gliders and tugs carried GPS loggers, all
flight data could be automatically captured except for matching
flights to member names which should be fairly easy to do manually.
Tows would be matched to glider flights since the logs are time
stamped. *A tow starting at exactly the same time as a glider flight
would link them together.

A software package that created a daily screen from the logs data
where pilot names could be entered manually would make billing easier
- and a lot more accurate.

Stephen,

You may like the look of the software for gliding clubs described at
the following page.
http://datamodus.net/Index.htm

My club looked at it several years ago. We didn't go ahead (& still
use pen and paper), so no guarantees, but at least the supplier seemed
genuine.

Ian Grant
ian dot grant12 at gmail,com

On Nov 26, 7:05*pm, stevehaley wrote:
Like many clubs mine blows hot and cold on using launchpoint logging
software.
At present we have a legacy system handling flight recording from
paper records taken at the launch point with a link to our accounting
system which was written by a club member who left some time ago and
the system should probably be overhauled/replaced regardless of adding
a launchpoint bit. While it does tick the simple easy to use box I
suspect that savings could be made in terms of staff time entering the
data later.

I suspect that many other clubs are in a similar position or are
paying for the software. I would like to explore the possibility of a
collaborative venture making the end result open source which will
hopefully ensure that the support continues into the future and the
package moves forward

Would anyone who is interested in participating please contact me on
the email address below. Would also be interested to hear from anyone
who has a good robust system and is willing to donate it to the
community as a starting point.
A critical mass of at least 5-6 clubs and 4+ developers is probably
required - location is not seen as an issue and it should be easy
enough to make the software multilingual.

I would also like to hear of other clubs experiences using launchpoint
logging systems with respect to reliability, redundancy, ease of use
etc etc.

rgds
Stephen
sjhcon_at_gmail.com

Do consider practical issues such as:
- you can't see most computer screens outdoors
- power will be needed near launch point
- computaphobes in club
- affect of rain on komputers
- komputers often break
- ease of info transfer from field to wherever billing is done

Keep a paper backup in any case !

From a guy who specializes in practical solutions ;-)
See ya, Dave

We had a computer system running at our club about 8 years ago, but
have gone back to a paper system with the data entered into the
accounting system at a later time. The intent of the computer system
was to save the time punching in all the flight data. As it turns
out, it didn't actually make much difference in time-savings over the
course of a year.

Some of the problems are much as Dave mentions above, such as a power
source at the launch point and computaphobes.

Other problems included:

1. The issue of small mid-week operation not taking the computer to
the launch point to enter the flights (too much effort for just a
couple of flights) and then someone else having to enter all the mid-
week flights before the Saturday morning operation could start.

2. Entering new members into the system at the launch point - the
member database was not easily updated on the fly.

3. Errors entered into the launch point computer are transmitted
directly into the billing system. If there is no paper trail, these
can be difficult to correct.


With the paper system, one person in a quiet space enters all the data
and checks it for validity before it gets to the billing system.
Granted, this person does a lot of data entry, but we have also found
that they catch 99% of the errors before the numbers hit the billing
system.

Our system (for a club of about 150 members with about 3500 flights
per year) now works like this.

a. The pilot fills out a flight card before take-off with glider ID,
their name and account #, type of flight and tow height. (types of
flight include Intro/Famil flight, student flight, solo flight, flight
in private ship etc)

b. The flight card is passed to the time keeper who enters the flight
on the daily log sheet, assigns a flight number and then adds take-off
and landing time on the card.

c. The card is a two part carbon form, where one copy goes to the
accounting system and the other goes to the pilot after the flight

d. The flight info from all cards is entered into our "flight card
processor" (FCP). This is a program written in Visual Basic with a MS
Access backbone. This converts the feet and minutes for each flight
into dollars and cents. It also produces a monthly listing for each
member with all the details for each flight.

e. At the end of each month the FCP data is entered into the
accounting system (Quickbooks)

f. Statements are emailed to each member the first week of each month
with a complete listing of all their flight details from the FCP, as
well as all the credits/debits to their account from Quickbooks.

On Nov 27, 2:09*pm, Dave Springford wrote:
We had a computer system running at our club about 8 years ago, but
have gone back to a paper system with the data entered into the
accounting system at a later time. *The intent of the computer system
was to save the time punching in all the flight data. *As it turns
out, it didn't actually make much difference in time-savings over the
course of a year.

Some of the problems are much as Dave mentions above, such as a power
source at the launch point and computaphobes.

Other problems included:

1. The issue of small mid-week operation not taking the computer to
the launch point to enter the flights (too much effort for just a
couple of flights) and then someone else having to enter all the mid-
week flights before the Saturday morning operation could start.

2. Entering new members into the system at the launch point - the
member database was not easily updated on the fly.

3. Errors entered into the launch point computer are transmitted
directly into the billing system. *If there is no paper trail, these
can be difficult to correct.

With the paper system, one person in a quiet space enters all the data
and checks it for validity before it gets to the billing system.
Granted, this person does a lot of data entry, but we have also found
that they catch 99% of the errors before the numbers hit the billing
system.

Our system (for a club of about 150 members with about 3500 flights
per year) now works like this.

a. *The pilot fills out a flight card before take-off with glider ID,
their name and account #, type of flight and tow height. *(types of
flight include Intro/Famil flight, student flight, solo flight, flight
in private ship etc)

b. *The flight card is passed to the time keeper who enters the flight
on the daily log sheet, assigns a flight number and then adds take-off
and landing time on the card.

c. *The card is a two part carbon form, where one copy goes to the
accounting system and the other goes to the pilot after the flight

d. *The flight info from all cards is entered into our "flight card
processor" (FCP). *This is a program written in Visual Basic with a MS
Access backbone. *This converts the feet and minutes for each flight
into dollars and cents. *It also produces a monthly listing for each
member with all the details for each flight.

e. *At the end of each month the FCP data is entered into the
accounting system (Quickbooks)

f. *Statements are emailed to each member the first week of each month
with a complete listing of all their flight details from the FCP, as
well as all the credits/debits to their account from Quickbooks.

You could consider using digital pen technology with a template that
specifies all the relevant flight info fields to be filled out:

http://www.livescribe.com/

At least then you'd have a paper copy of all the original entries.
You'd need to figure out the OCR part - which in theory would be
easier as you'd know whether each field was alpha or numeric - but
even so it would be a fair amount of coding. And you'd need to make
sure nobody lost the pen!

Bill mentions integrating with GPS loggers. While interesting I think
it may be overkill for the simple purpose of getting flight times -
unless you had a wireless way of downloading everything from the
aircraft. Even more coding and the wireless technology on loggers
isn't quite available yet.

9B

On Nov 28, 10:10*am, Andy wrote:
On Nov 27, 2:09*pm, Dave Springford wrote:



We had a computer system running at our club about 8 years ago, but
have gone back to a paper system with the data entered into the
accounting system at a later time. *The intent of the computer system
was to save the time punching in all the flight data. *As it turns
out, it didn't actually make much difference in time-savings over the
course of a year.

Some of the problems are much as Dave mentions above, such as a power
source at the launch point and computaphobes.

Other problems included:

1. The issue of small mid-week operation not taking the computer to
the launch point to enter the flights (too much effort for just a
couple of flights) and then someone else having to enter all the mid-
week flights before the Saturday morning operation could start.

2. Entering new members into the system at the launch point - the
member database was not easily updated on the fly.

3. Errors entered into the launch point computer are transmitted
directly into the billing system. *If there is no paper trail, these
can be difficult to correct.

With the paper system, one person in a quiet space enters all the data
and checks it for validity before it gets to the billing system.
Granted, this person does a lot of data entry, but we have also found
that they catch 99% of the errors before the numbers hit the billing
system.

Our system (for a club of about 150 members with about 3500 flights
per year) now works like this.

a. *The pilot fills out a flight card before take-off with glider ID,
their name and account #, type of flight and tow height. *(types of
flight include Intro/Famil flight, student flight, solo flight, flight
in private ship etc)

b. *The flight card is passed to the time keeper who enters the flight
on the daily log sheet, assigns a flight number and then adds take-off
and landing time on the card.

c. *The card is a two part carbon form, where one copy goes to the
accounting system and the other goes to the pilot after the flight

d. *The flight info from all cards is entered into our "flight card
processor" (FCP). *This is a program written in Visual Basic with a MS
Access backbone. *This converts the feet and minutes for each flight
into dollars and cents. *It also produces a monthly listing for each
member with all the details for each flight.

e. *At the end of each month the FCP data is entered into the
accounting system (Quickbooks)

f. *Statements are emailed to each member the first week of each month
with a complete listing of all their flight details from the FCP, as
well as all the credits/debits to their account from Quickbooks.

You could consider using digital pen technology with a template that
specifies all the relevant flight info fields to be filled out:

http://www.livescribe.com/

At least then you'd have a paper copy of all the original entries.
You'd need to figure out the OCR part - which in theory would be
easier as you'd know whether each field was alpha or numeric - but
even so it would be a fair amount of coding. *And you'd need to make
sure nobody lost the pen!

Bill mentions integrating with GPS loggers. While interesting I think
it may be overkill for the simple purpose of getting flight times -
unless you had a wireless way of downloading everything from the
aircraft. Even more coding and the wireless technology on loggers
isn't quite available yet.

9B

Wireless tech would make a nifty system but it isn't absolutely
needed. If the GPS loggers recorded on SD cards, just bring them to
the club office for the software to read. You'd still have to
manually log who flew which glider but the altitudes and flight
durations would be perfectly accurate.

On Nov 28, 9:27*am, bildan wrote:
On Nov 28, 10:10*am, Andy wrote:

Wireless tech would make a nifty system but it isn't absolutely
needed. *If the GPS loggers recorded on SD cards, just bring them to
the club office for the software to read. *You'd still have to
manually log who flew which glider but the altitudes and flight
durations would be perfectly accurate.

Here's a logger with SD capability and Bluetooth:

http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/pro...oducts_id=8823

I still see a few potential problems:

- I you relieve the ops/launch director and tow pilots from recording
times and altitudes you are making the day's operations subject to the
reliability of the technology. Since tow pilots wouldn't be using the
logger for anything related to their duties they would have no idea
whether it is functioning properly until the end of day data
collection exercise - at which point it's really too late to recover.
If you keep written logs as a backup you are giving up most of the
benefit as I don't see much operational benefit to the end of day
accounting - in one case you have to download a bunch of logs and
manually sync them up with the aircraft bring towed versus simply
putting in the altitudes and registration numbers off the tow pilots'
sheets.

- There are similar issues for logging club glider flights. Managing
SD cards, making sure they are in and that the logger battery is
charged before each flight are a couple of the operational issues I
can imagine.

- Wireless would be a way for the ops director to sync up after each
flight and ensure that everything is working properly - but then you'd
have to have a process to acquire the signal from the towplane each
time. Bluetooth isn't great at this and the loggers may not be smart
enough to automatically download.

- At $150 a pop this becomes expensive, particularly if you want to
include gliders in addition to just towplanes. You might rather have
igc loggers in gliders, but that is even more expensive.

- Even with all of this you still have to sync up each flight/tow with
a customer. Some people just aren't good at doing this on a computer
versus pen and paper.

Not that it couldn't be done - eventually it will be I expect. But you
need to get the infrastructure in place - I expect pure record keeping
isn't enough justification for most clubs. A first step would be
allowing off-the-shelf commercial loggers to be used for badge
flights. If you already had a logger in every aircraft it would open
up their use for other purposes.

For the flight line I expect a touchscreen e-paper tablet would be a
good solution.

http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/03/h...n-pc-at-cebit/

Still needs development...

9B