Your logbook is the evidence behind every licence, rating, and recency requirement you hold, so it is worth keeping accurately from the first flight.
This is general educational information, not operational, legal, or regulatory advice. Rules differ by authority and change over time. Always verify against current official sources and follow your operator's approved procedures.
Why the record matters
A pilot logbook is not paperwork for its own sake. It is how you demonstrate the experience needed to issue or revalidate a licence or rating, to satisfy recency requirements, and to complete a flight review or proficiency check. At the international level, ICAO Annex 1 (Personnel Licensing) sets the framework of minimum standards for licensing, including the flying experience a pilot must be able to show; each authority then sets the detailed record-keeping rule.
What to record
The EASA rule is brief and broad. Part-FCL, FCL.050 requires that a pilot "keep a reliable record of the details of all flights flown in a form and manner established by the competent authority", with the exact columns set out in the associated guidance and by your national authority (for the UK, see CAP 407).
The FAA takes a slightly different angle. 14 CFR 61.51 only requires you to log the time used to show training and experience for a certificate or rating, for recency, or for a flight review, though in practice most pilots log everything. When you do log a flight, the entry records the date, total flight time, the aircraft type and identification, the departure and arrival points or route, the conditions of flight, and the type of pilot experience or role.
A single entry, then, might read: date 18/06/2026; aircraft C172 G-ABCD; route EGTB-EGTB; total 1.2; of which PIC 1.2, night 0.3, instrument 0.0; with 2 take-offs and landings. The exact columns vary, but that is the shape of it.
Logging the role: where EASA and FAA differ
The biggest source of confusion is how you log who was flying, and the two systems genuinely differ. Keep them separate.
Under EASA and the UK CAA, the pilot-function categories include P1 (pilot-in-command), PICUS (pilot-in-command under supervision, where a co-pilot performs the duties of commander under the commander's supervision), P2 (co-pilot), and dual or pilot-under-training. Under the FAA, the categories are pilot-in-command, second-in-command, solo, and dual received. The FAA also has a rule with no exact EASA equivalent: 14 CFR 61.51(e) lets an appropriately rated pilot log pilot-in-command time whenever they are the sole manipulator of the controls, even when they are not the legal pilot in command. Do not carry that FAA convention across to an EASA logbook, or PICUS across to an FAA one.
Night and instrument time
Night and instrument time are logged in their own columns, but the definition of night is authority-specific, which matters when you total it up. The FAA ties logged night to the period between the end of evening civil twilight and the beginning of morning civil twilight, defined in 14 CFR 1.1. EASA defines night separately in its operating rules. Because the definitions differ, the same flight can produce a different night figure under each system.
Recency: a worked contrast
Recency is where logging accuracy pays off, and the FAA and EASA numbers are not interchangeable.
Under the FAA, 14 CFR 61.57 says that to carry passengers you must have made, within the preceding 90 days, 3 take-offs and 3 landings as sole manipulator in an aircraft of the same category, class, and type if a type rating is required; in a tailwheel aeroplane the landings must be to a full stop; and night passenger recency requires those to be to a full stop during the period from 1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise. Note the trap: that night-recency window (1 hour after sunset to 1 hour before sunrise) is not the same as the civil-twilight definition the FAA uses for logging night, so the two "night" rules describe different periods.
Under EASA and the UK CAA, Part-FCL, FCL.060 requires 3 take-offs, approaches and landings in the preceding 90 days to carry passengers; EASA counts approaches, the FAA does not. Revalidating a single-engine piston class rating by experience has its own requirements, completed in the 12 months before the rating expires, including a specified amount of flying with time as pilot-in-command, a set number of take-offs and landings, and refresher training with an instructor; see FCL.740.A for the exact current figures.
Common pitfalls
- Mixing logging conventions across authorities. Decide which system an entry is for and stick to it.
- Assuming "night" means one thing. Check which definition applies to what you are claiming.
- Logging time you cannot support. If a column might be questioned for a licence or rating, make sure the entry is defensible.
In Pilot EFB
Pilot EFB keeps an electronic logbook, and completing a flight can generate entries for you to review and confirm rather than retype. Treat it as a convenient working record: keep it backed up, and reconcile it with your authority's requirements and any logbook your operator or training organisation treats as the official record. Entries you have saved stay available offline; Pilot EFB is offline-first and is not a certified Electronic Flight Bag.