Hi, I was just wondering how you guys log the aircraft you see? Do you use excel? What do you include in it? How is it layed out?

Thanks

I have created half a dozen MS Access databases. They are cumbersome because of the way Access indexes listings. But it allows me to do databases by airport, manufacturer, airline. If I were starting over again I would use Excel.

when i started in 1964 a exercise book now Excel how times change took ages to transfer from book to Excel.

I came into the aircraft scene in November 1984 while working in Gibraltar and started using notebooks mainly for the military flights coming in and out of Gib - some civil a/c as well. From the early 90s, after coming back to the UK, just concentrated on the military scene.

With the advent of Flightradar and OTT sightings have set up an Excel spread-sheet and am logging all new civil a/c sightings onto it and am now slowly going through my notebooks and putting those on Excel as well. Have already set up two spread-sheets for RAF and foreign military sightings.

Criteria used is country, registration, type, owner, photo/slide/digital, date seen, where seen, fate of a/c.

However, aircraft will always come second to my primary interest - ships and ship photography.

Does anybody use any of the online databases for logging? Now that jp Airline Fleets has stopped, I am at a bit of a loss!

Thanks,

Ken

only this one

Gary

I use access for my spottings. First time views per aircraft are logged, only double when livery changes or winglets added (that kind of stuff) I also add the photo filename. (airline/registration/type aircraft/remarks/airport/filename/cs) I think this is enough work for me besides editing the photos :) Pieter

I have a basic notepad on my laptop where I log reg, full aircraft type, operator, home base and any comments like a special livery or opf UA Express etc. I now keep a monthly log for YVR and the local GA fields and only log new registrations or special visitors that I have seen before like an AN124 or overseas bizjet. I then make a separate log for any trips like PAE/BFI or when I am travelling and I note every registration I have seen even if I have seen it before.

My GA log is massive and so far I cant log it here as I guess it will be a mammoth task for someone to add all the Canadian and US Cessna's... so I will always have to keep my manual logs.

i would say log them the GA ones. i would say 75 to 90% of mine is not tied to a entry in the DB as there was no entry when i logged mine and most still have no entry but i am slowly going through my log and adding them one by one. i would at least six months work as i have do other things as well as editor. i used multiple entry to log mine.

But you have to watch out for re-used registrations that may be in the DB. the only way i could stop them going to a wrong airframe was to add an x after the reg and remove the x afterwards when you see the list after add entry so if you see a wrong aircraft type delete and re-enter with the x after the reg. then do the above.

Gary