Recording Hobbs

Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks

Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks

I don't, although I will sometimes record (temporarily) in my Palm
(Tungsten E) the hobbs and tach numbers until I can transfer them to my
paper logbook. My palm came with Documents To Go, which lets me work
with Excel spreadsheets. It also has a sketchpad function which I use
to scrawl the numbers until I get to my logbook.

For what you are asking, just about any PDA should do fine.

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

I do the same with my Palm Z22, it has a note pad feature that turns the
tough screen into a note pad. Just scribble away.
Temporary document until I can transfer it to my personal log book. I do the
same with logging time with my students.

Any PDA with a spreadsheet function will do what you want.

BT

"Jose" wrote in message
t...
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks

I don't, although I will sometimes record (temporarily) in my Palm
(Tungsten E) the hobbs and tach numbers until I can transfer them to my
paper logbook. My palm came with Documents To Go, which lets me work with
Excel spreadsheets. It also has a sketchpad function which I use to
scrawl the numbers until I get to my logbook.

For what you are asking, just about any PDA should do fine.

Jose
--
"There are 3 secrets to the perfect landing. Unfortunately, nobody knows
what they are." - (mike).
for Email, make the obvious change in the address.

fwiw, I use a steno pad. Wx notes go on top, flight plan under it,
startup tach/hobbs, clearance under all of that, then freqs, estimates
at fixes, actuals at fixes, and so on. I have a number of those pads,
each page holding the complete contemporaneous record of a flight. The
pads hold 90 sheets, I keep some reference notes on some pages, so
there may be 150 or 170 flights in each book. What makes it especially
neat is I can look at how I filed a particular flight from some time
ago, or look at a given flight and remember more details than the
single line in my log book provides.

The pencil gets stuck in the spring, the pad is easy to write on (no
knee clips or things like that, they tend to wrinkle up suit pants).

That brings up a long ago memory. I remember sometime in the 60s seeing
the Blue Angels at South Waymouth Naval Air Station in MA. There was a
P51 Spitfire out on the field, and I remember watching a guy go out
wearing a suit. He took off his coat, climbed in, strapped on the
chute, then took off and did things (I wasn't a pilot then) that I had
never seen done before -- high speed low passes inverted, following the
dip in the runway so he seemed to disappear -- that sort of thing. He
landed, got out, put on his suit coat, and walked away.

Much later I'd fly with my friends in their C172s and the like and
they'd put on their flying boots and flying gloves and God knows what
else. It made me smile.

I did a lot of flying on business, and would remember that Spitfire
jockey when I'd go out to the Mooney, fold my suitcoat and put it in
the backseat, then fly off.

However, I remember a couple of times finishing my meetings or
whatever, go out to the airplane in a rainstorm and find water in the
tanks! Draining a lowwing tanke in the rain is NOT a suit and tie job!

I know the last few paragraphs do not have anything to do with the
OP's question -- but the steno pad does. Give that way of keeping
flight plans and notes a try, you may find you like it a lot.



On Dec 5, 5:34 pm, "BG" wrote:
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks

crossposting-snipped

On Tue, 05 Dec 2006 14:34:18 -0800, in
om, BG wrote:
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA?

I use a Navman PiN 100... I picked it up at Fry's one day for less than
$200... It has a GPS built into it and I've loaded PocketFMS onto it... I
use the notepad feature of it to just write down the hours and then I'll
enter them into my electronic logbook whenever I get a chance... I've
probably got a year's worth of entries that I need to enter in by now... I
have enough hours that I don't need to log them for an advanced rating and
I'm never going to be a professional pilot, so I'm rather lax about
logging my hours...

I don't know why you would need to write them down with such precision.
Is it for tax purposes? Or is it an employer requirement? If it is just
for the personal logbook, I don't see why you need a PDA to do this.
Just remember it in your head, or write it down on a scrap piece of
paper until you get home.




BG wrote:
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks

Tony wrote:

That brings up a long ago memory. I remember sometime in the 60s seeing
the Blue Angels at South Waymouth Naval Air Station in MA. There was a
P51 Spitfire out on the field, and I remember watching a guy go out
wearing a suit. He took off his coat, climbed in, strapped on the
chute, then took off and did things (I wasn't a pilot then) that I had
never seen done before -- high speed low passes inverted, following the
dip in the runway so he seemed to disappear -- that sort of thing. He
landed, got out, put on his suit coat, and walked away.



A P-51 SPITFIRE you say? ;-))

A man wearing a suit, you say?

Did he perchance wear a straw hat?

Was he tall and thin with a mustache?

Did he make the aircraft dance down the runway from one wheel to the
other and back again?

If you answered yes to all of the above, you were priviledged to see a
performance by "The Pilot's Pilot", aka Robert A "Bob" Hoover.

"Andrew Sarangan" wrote in message
ups.com...
I don't know why you would need to write them down with such precision.
Is it for tax purposes? Or is it an employer requirement? If it is just
for the personal logbook, I don't see why you need a PDA to do this.
Just remember it in your head, or write it down on a scrap piece of
paper until you get home.




BG wrote:
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land? If so, what would be the brand and the main features of the
PDA? Thanks


I have a PocketPC with a small version of Excel. I have a W&B (including the
chart) customized for my plane. The Lake is somewhat CG limited. It's easy
to be too far aft starting out. And just as easy to be too far forward after
fuel burns off. So anything other than typical loads gets put in to check
the range as fuel burns. My chart plots the line from starting fuel down to
5 gal. remaining. I figure if I have less than 5 gal, a little forward CG is
the least of my problems.

I do have an Excel file with my flight information. I use it as an easier
way to determine flight currency for medical applications, insurance forms,
IFR currency, and the trivial passenger currency. It's also a backup, in
case I lose my logbook.

It's kind of nice to be able to crunch Excel formulae to determine, for
example, how many hours do I have in C172s? in the last six months. At
night. Solo.

I have a section at the bottom that lists the typical currency numbers and
displays colored text to warn me that I need to, for example, get some IFR
approaches in before it's too late.

I do copy this chart to my PocketPC but I don't enter numbers using the PDA.
Too small and I really want the master on my PC anyway. I have flight note
sheets in my kneeboard that have a customized form at the top with room for
start-up/shutdown time, start-up/shutdown tach, start-up/shutdown hobbs, and
othe stuff. One sheet per flight. I collect them and transfer the info to my
logbook and the Excel file periodically.

-------------------------------
Travis
Lake N3094P
PWK

BG wrote:
Does anyone use a PDA to record in a small spreadsheet the departure
airport, your destination airport, and the Hobbs & Tach readings when
you land?

I do it with a paper kneeboard fuel log form created in Excel. The
kneeboard is already there, the PDA isn't. When I get home or to a
hotel, the fuel log easily recreates my log entries. I only bother with
tach time as a reality check, because we've had two occasions in two
years where the Hobbs didn't move.

The log lists start times, start fuel, and on/off times for each tank.
I verify each time I land, and enter any added fuel as necessary during
the trip. There is blank space at the bottom of the form for random
notes, ATIS ID's etc...

My PDA does have a weight and balance spreadsheet I created that works
very well for on the spot W&B.

That was before I knew what a Bob Hoover was, but it all fits together.
That must have been before he mostly worked in an Aero Commander. Too
bad about his Aero Commander, him having so much trouble keeping both
fans turning. . .and he had a lot of trouble with straight and level
too, didn't he?

You must have seen the videos of him flying the Commander without
spilling anything from an open container.

Do you know if he did other things that took advantage of his
remarkable coordination, or was it only obvious when he flew?



On Dec 5, 10:49 pm, John Smith wrote:
Tony wrote:
That brings up a long ago memory. I remember sometime in the 60s seeing
the Blue Angels at South Waymouth Naval Air Station in MA. There was a
P51 Spitfire out on the field, and I remember watching a guy go out
wearing a suit. He took off his coat, climbed in, strapped on the
chute, then took off and did things (I wasn't a pilot then) that I had
never seen done before -- high speed low passes inverted, following the
dip in the runway so he seemed to disappear -- that sort of thing. He
landed, got out, put on his suit coat, and walked away.A P-51 SPITFIRE you say? ;-))

A man wearing a suit, you say?

Did he perchance wear a straw hat?

Was he tall and thin with a mustache?

Did he make the aircraft dance down the runway from one wheel to the
other and back again?

If you answered yes to all of the above, you were priviledged to see a
performance by "The Pilot's Pilot", aka Robert A "Bob" Hoover.