Hi everyone. I’m an active member of a VA and I think it’s important to have my flights recorded. Also, to be more realistic, I try to apply take-off & landing profiles, as well as step climbing profiles. This logbook wouldn’t be possible without the threads created by @Kuba_Jaroszczyk and @AndrewWu
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Ultimate guide to fuel burn + fuel calculator (for the step climb)
and these websites
But it’s such a hassle to always open these links everytime I fly, so I created a semi-automatic logbook using Excel. Here is what you will find. The logbook consists of 3 main parts:
Logbook
This is where you will input your flight details
- All white-colored columns are automatic. You only have to fill the orange and gray columns. I set the logbook so that the departure airport for the next flight is the arrival airport for the previous flight (but of course you can rewrite the rows on column A if you’re not that kind of player).
- The runways will be automatically filled since it’s only a rounding of their heading divided by 10. But you might want to fill the runway yourself if it’s something like EGLL that has 9R and 9L.
- All these informations (runway, runway heading, runway length) can be found in-game.
- HDG is the heading from your departure to arrival. Enter number between 0 to 359.
- DIST is the cumulative distance (CUM DIST) and can be found in your FPL.
- ALT is altitude of the airport, quite self-explanatory.
- APPR RANGE is the range where you can activate APPR mode, and it’s runway heading ±30° (see this article).
- APPR ALT is the altitude you can begin APPR mode and it’s about 3000ft AGL.
- The PLANNED FUEL already consists of reserve fuel, and it’s automatically filled once you fill the cumulative distance and aircraft (I did a simple regression analysis for each aircraft on the fuel planner). The fuel header itself is a dropdown, so you can choose between KG and LBS. I added USED FUEL column to make filling your PIREP easier (if you’re a member of a VA). DIFF stands for the difference between planned and used fuel.
- The ETA (estimated time arrival) will be automatically filled once you fill the cumulative distance (again, this is the result of a simple regression analysis) and ACTU is the actual flight time to make filling your PIREP easier.
- Cruising altitude is explained here.
- LDG APPR (landing approach) column is a dropdown and you may choose between ILS/GPS/VISUAL. The choice will affect SETTINGS sheet (will display APPR RANGE if you choose ILS and DEG if you choose GPS/VISUAL, also will display APPR ALT if you choose ILS and APPR ALT → airport altitude if you choose otherwise).
- The touch & go column is quite self-explanatory. I set it to YES if you (1) depart and arrive at the same airport; (2) the flight is less than 30 min.
- Flight number is in IATA.
- Airline is automatically filled based on the flight number. For example, filling the FLIGHT NUMBER column with SQ221 will automatically get you Singapore Airlines while GA750 will automatically get you Garuda Indonesia.
- The AIRCRAFT column is a dropdown. I don’t include all aircrafts since this thread is incomplete.
- Clicking FLIGHT PLAN column header will automatically redirect you to SimBrief.
- I added QUICK ROUTE DISPLAY column for easier viewing when I open browser (for SimBrief) and this excel sheet at the same time.
If you’re not a member of a VA, you can skip this part
- Virtual airline is quite self-explanatory. I added this column since I am a member of 2 VAs, so that I won’t find myself confused about which flight is which.
- Type of flight consists of regular routes, codeshares, ROTWs, etc. It is a dropdown, yes.
- Type of load consists of passenger or cargo. Again, it’s a dropdown.
- 2 VAs, 2 callsign regulations, that’s what I’m always confused of before starting every flight. But I don’t know how callsign regulation works in your VA so I just put a general formula here: Airline callsign + random number + none/Heavy/Super. This is how it works in my personal sheet (different from the file I uploaded).
- REMARKS is used when you want to report something like app crash or you resuming your flight.
Settings
This is where you will find your flight profiles with easier view
Basically, this sheet automatically fills the most bottom row of the LOGBOOK sheet so you can keep your flight history. Almost everything in this sheet is automatic except LOAD (%) and SEARCH IATA CODE & CALLSIGN feature. The search airline tab is a dropdown but not every airline is there since there are some airlines that are not on IF. I find that the numbers and colors in this thread difficult to comprehend so I just made a guide on whether you should climb or not based on @AndrewWu’s thread to maximize fuel savings.
After completing a flight, the sheet will look like this.
The CURRENT LOC tab will stay EN ROUTE if you don’t fill USED FUEL and ACTUAL FLIGHT TIME. Anyway, I wrote some comments in the file in case you’re still confused.
Database
This is self-explanatory. There are 4 of them and I hope you don’t delete these sheets by mistake or you’ll ruin everything.
For easier viewing, I decided to hide the database sheets and show only the first 2 sheets (+VA) of the logbook. Anyway, here’s the download link. Tell me what you think in the comments.
Change log 2024-07-23 0500Z
- Added CARGO column to the logbook. I separated pax and cargo column for easier calculating initial load.
- INITIAL LOAD (in the Settings sheet) is now automatically calculated. Just enter the right amount of fuel, pax, cargo, and aircraft. It is recommended that you re-insert the amount of fuel you get from IF’s sliders to the PLANNED FUEL column. I also added MTOWs and MLWs on the Database and CLIMB & DESCENT PROFILES table.
- If you choose cargo in the TYPE OF LOAD column, the initial load won’t calculate the pax.
- Added approach speeds and altitude MSL/distance from final on the CLIMB & DESCENT PROFILES table. Disclaimer: altitudes MSL on final are only approximations and may not represent the real values.
- Clicking the upper part of FLIGHT PLAN header will redirect you to SimBrief, while clicking the bottom part will redirect you to KML-to-FPL converter. You may download Google Maps KML file from SimBrief and convert it here.
- Modified VIRTUAL AIRLINE & CALLSIGN columns and added a new sheet: VA. In this sheet you’ll be able to insert any VA you’re currently in (up to 10 VAs), your callsign number, suffix for each VA, and the option to change callsign based on airline. I did this because there are VAs that require you to use the same callsign whatever airline you’re flying, but there are also others which do not have the same rule. I input 3 rows just as placeholders and you can freely change them whatever you want.
- Simplified aircraft dropdowns to ICAO code designators. I also added missing aircraft (i.e., McDouglas series)
- Modified this table on the Settings sheet. If you choose passengers as the type of load, it will show the number of pax and cargo, e.g., in this pic I have 125 pax and 3092 kg of cargo (C stands for cargo). I also added a Zulu time converter. Just input your timezone and whether you’re observing DST and voilá! There it is! The converted time! Here is how to read time in Zulu. In this example, it shows 230246Z, which means 23rd day of the month at 02:46 Zulu time. The Zulu time will change automatically if you edit or input anything to any cell.
- Moved search airlines feature to the VA sheet and added longest and shortest flight table. It’s just cool to know it right?
