Some flying sits outside the everyday columns. A tow pilot dragging a glider aloft, a banner run over a beach, a display of loops and rolls: all are logged flights, but how you record them, and what lets you do them at all, is a corner of the rules that hangar talk gets wrong more often than most. The good news is that the logging is simpler than people fear, and the tangles are all about permission, not paperwork.
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.
Special operations, ordinary columns
Start with the logbook, because it is the least complicated part. Neither system gives towing or aerobatics a regulatory time category of its own. Under the FAA's 14 CFR 61.51, the conditions of flight you log are day or night, actual instrument, simulated instrument, and night-vision-goggle time, and neither "aerobatic" nor "towing" is on that list. EASA is the same in effect: its logbook format, the AMC1 FCL.050 layout, records pilot function and operational conditions, not a special column for special sorties.
So a tow flight or an aerobatic sortie is logged as ordinary flight time in the relevant aircraft category, exactly as covered in our guide to pilot function and logging roles. If you want a running tally of tows flown or aerobatic hours for your own currency and pride, you keep it in the remarks. That is a personal record, not a regulated figure. The regulation is spent entirely on the privilege to do the activity, which is where the real substance lies, and where EASA and the FAA part company.
Towing a glider: the FAA rule
Under the FAA, glider towing has its own experience rule, 14 CFR 61.69, titled "Glider and unpowered ultralight vehicle towing". To tow a glider or unpowered ultralight you must hold at least a private pilot certificate with a category rating for powered aircraft, and you must have logged at least 100 hours of pilot-in-command time in the aircraft category, class and type (if a type rating is required) that you are using to tow. On top of the hours you need a logbook endorsement from an authorised instructor certifying that you have had ground and flight training in gliders or unpowered ultralights and are proficient in towing techniques and procedures. And the endorsement alone does not finish the job: 61.69 also requires at least three training tows, actual or simulated tow procedures, flown as sole manipulator of the controls while accompanied by a qualified tow pilot, and a second logbook endorsement, from the qualified tow pilot who accompanied you, certifying you have accomplished them.
There is also a recency requirement that is easy to overlook. Within the preceding 24 calendar months you must have made either at least three actual or simulated tows while accompanied by a qualified tow pilot, or at least three flights as pilot-in-command of a glider or unpowered ultralight being towed. Let that lapse and the endorsement and the 100 hours do not save you; you have to re-establish tow recency first. The operating conduct of the tow itself, the signals, the rope, the release, sits in a separate rule, 14 CFR 91.309, "Towing: Gliders and unpowered ultralight vehicles". Think of 61.69 as the rule about the pilot and 91.309 as the rule about the operation.
Banner towing is a different animal
Now the trap. Banner towing is not a 61.69 activity, and treating it as one is a genuine misconception worth killing. 61.69 is about gliders and unpowered ultralights, full stop. Towing anything else, a banner above all, falls under 14 CFR 91.311, "Towing: Other than under 91.309", which says that no pilot of a civil aircraft may tow anything with that aircraft (other than under 91.309) "except in accordance with the terms of a certificate of waiver issued by the Administrator".
That is a completely different mechanism. Glider towing rests on logged experience and an instructor's endorsement; banner towing rests on an FAA certificate of waiver, issued to authorise an operation the regulations otherwise forbid, with its own conditions on approach, pickup and altitudes. If someone tells you their 100 hours and a signature let them tow banners, they have merged two separate rules. The hours-and-endorsement route is for gliders; the waiver route is for banners.
The EASA side of towing
EASA gates towing with a rating, in FCL.805, "Sailplane towing and banner towing rating", and it covers both activities under one heading with separate requirements. For the sailplane (glider) towing privilege on aeroplanes or TMGs, you need at least 30 hours of flight time as pilot-in-command and 60 take-offs and landings in the relevant category, plus a training course including at least 10 tow flights, of which at least 5 are dual, and (unless you already fly sailplanes) some familiarisation flights being launched in a sailplane. For the banner towing privilege the bar is higher: at least 100 hours of flight time and 200 take-offs and landings as pilot-in-command, plus a course including at least 10 banner-tow flights, of which at least 5 are dual.
EASA has a tow-recency rule of its own, and it is not the FAA's. Under FCL.805(e), the privileges of the towing rating may be exercised only if the holder has completed a minimum of 5 tows during the last 24 months. So both authorities gate the privilege on recent towing over a 24-month window, and both put a number on it, but the numbers differ: the FAA asks for 3 tows or towed flights in the preceding 24 calendar months under 61.69, and EASA asks for 5 tows in the last 24 months under FCL.805(e). Quote the figure that belongs to your licence, and do not assume the other one will do.
So the two systems reach the same caution by different roads. The FAA sets glider towing behind experience and an endorsement and banner towing behind a waiver; EASA sets both behind a rating, but scales the requirement so banner towing (100 hours) demands far more than glider towing (30 hours), mirroring the greater difficulty of the low-level pickup and tow. State the two separately whenever you plan, because you cannot carry an FAA endorsement into an EASA logbook as if it were an EASA rating, or vice versa. Sailplane pilots who tow work under the parallel Part-SFCL rating rather than FCL.805, and in the UK the CAA administers its own retained Part-FCL, so confirm the current figures for your licence through the CAA's licensing pages rather than assuming the EASA numbers apply unchanged.
Aerobatic flight and how it is bounded
Aerobatics, as we have seen, gets no special column, so the interesting rules are the ones that bound the activity. The FAA defines it precisely in 14 CFR 91.303: aerobatic flight means "an intentional maneuver involving an abrupt change in an aircraft's attitude, an abnormal attitude, or abnormal acceleration, not necessary for normal flight". The same rule forbids it over any congested area of a city, town or settlement; over an open-air assembly of people; within the lateral boundaries of the surface areas of Class B, C, D or E airspace designated for an airport; within 4 nautical miles of the centre line of any Federal airway; below 1,500 feet above the surface; and when flight visibility is less than 3 statute miles.
There is also a parachute rule that is broader than aerobatics and worth reading exactly. Under 14 CFR 91.307, no pilot carrying any person other than a crewmember may execute an intentional manoeuvre exceeding a bank of 60 degrees relative to the horizon, or a nose-up or nose-down attitude of 30 degrees, unless each occupant is wearing an approved parachute. The exceptions are narrow: flight tests for a certificate or rating, and spins and other manoeuvres required by the regulations for a certificate or rating when given by a certificated flight instructor or an airline transport pilot instructing in accordance with 61.67. Note what triggers it, the attitudes and carrying a non-crew passenger, not the word "aerobatic", so a steep training turn with a friend aboard can implicate the rule even when nobody would call it aerobatics.
The aerobatic rating: EASA versus FAA
The sharpest divergence is whether you need a rating at all. Under EASA, you do. FCL.800 requires an aerobatic rating before a licence holder may fly aerobatics in aeroplanes or TMGs. To earn it you need, after the issue of the licence, at least 30 hours of flight time as pilot-in-command in aeroplanes or TMGs, and a training course at an approved or declared training organisation including theoretical knowledge instruction and at least 5 hours of aerobatic instruction. (These are the current figures; earlier, higher numbers still circulate on unofficial pages, so check the rule itself. Sailplane aerobatics now sit under the separate Part-SFCL provisions.)
Under the FAA, there is no aerobatic rating. Any appropriately certificated pilot may fly aerobatics, provided they stay inside the operating limits of 91.303 and the parachute rule of 91.307. Competence is a matter of training and good sense rather than a certificate line. That is a real difference in kind, not degree: EASA controls aerobatics with a qualification you carry, the FAA with rules you obey in the moment, so a pilot moving between systems must not assume their home arrangement travels with them.
A worked example
You fly a 0.8-hour glider-tow sortie in a tug you are rated in, then later the same day a 0.5-hour aerobatic detail solo in an aerobatic single.
For the tow, you log 0.8 total as pilot-in-command in the tug's category; there is no "towing" column, so the tow is captured as ordinary PIC time, and you jot "3rd glider tow of the month" in remarks for your own tally. Your right to fly it rests on your 100 hours, your instructor's 61.69 endorsement, the accompanied training tows and the tow pilot's endorsement that followed them, and your three tows within the preceding 24 calendar months, none of which appear as a logged figure; they are conditions behind the entry, not columns in it. Fly the same sortie on an EASA towing rating and the entry is identical, but the recency behind it is FCL.805(e)'s five tows in the last 24 months instead. Had the job been a banner instead of a glider, none of the FAA glider machinery would apply; you would need a 91.311 waiver.
For the aerobatic detail, you log 0.5 total PIC, again with no aerobatic column, and note "aerobatics, local" in remarks. Flying solo, the 91.307 parachute rule for carrying a passenger is not triggered, but you still keep clear of the 91.303 limits, above 1,500 feet, clear of the airway centre line and the airport surface areas, in better than 3 statute miles. Under an EASA licence you could only fly this at all if you held the FCL.800 aerobatic rating; under an FAA certificate no rating is needed, only the discipline to stay inside the rules. Same two flights, the same two log entries, and all the regulation lives in the conditions around them.
Common pitfalls
- Thinking 61.69 covers banners. It covers gliders and unpowered ultralights only; banner towing needs a 91.311 waiver.
- Forgetting tow recency, or borrowing the wrong number. Both systems have one. The FAA's glider-tow privilege lapses without three tows or towed flights in the preceding 24 calendar months, whatever your total hours; EASA's towing rating may be exercised only with a minimum of five tows in the last 24 months, under FCL.805(e). Use the figure that belongs to your licence.
- Inventing an aerobatic column. Neither system logs aerobatic time as a category; it is ordinary flight time, with any tally kept in remarks.
- Assuming the FAA needs an aerobatic rating. It does not; EASA does. Do not carry one system's arrangement onto the other.
- Misreading the parachute rule. 91.307 keys off 60 degrees of bank or 30 degrees of pitch with a non-crew passenger aboard, not on the label "aerobatic".
- Quoting stale EASA numbers. The current FCL.800 figures are 30 hours PIC and 5 hours of instruction; higher older figures still circulate, so verify against the rule.
In Pilot EFB
Pilot EFB keeps an electronic logbook where your tow sorties and aerobatic details are logged as ordinary flight time in the right category, with a remarks field where you can keep your own running tally of tows flown or aerobatic hours, since neither is a regulated column. It is a personal record: you enter the roles and times yourself, and the privileges behind those flights, an endorsement, a recency window, a rating, live in the rules and your official documents, not in the app. Reconcile your entries with the requirements that apply to your licence and with any logbook your training organisation or club treats as official. Entries you have saved stay readable offline. Pilot EFB is offline-first and is not a certified or authority-approved electronic logbook, so treat it as your personal record and keep your endorsements and ratings where the rules require them.