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What CFIs log for each flight lesson THEY do?

Asked by: 3496 views Flight Instructor

I had an examiner bring this up to me. As a CFI are we supposed to log who and what was on each individual flight with students? Instead of just logging it like you would a normal flight (leaving the remarks section blank). Now, my flight school has records of everyone I've flown with since being hired, so the names are there worst case but for future reference I was not sure if I was doing something wrong. 

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2 Answers



  1. Russ Roslewski on Oct 13, 2016

    Your “normal” flights have the remarks section blank? In three logbooks worth of entries, I may have left one or two entries blank. There’s also something to comment on. But regardless…

    In my logbook, pretty much all I put is the student’s name. That serves mostly as a cross-reference for the separate document I have where I record the details of the flight – “steep turns, stalls, landing practice” – and how the student did – “lost altitude on steep turns, recovered from stalls nicely, needs work on crosswinds”. But that’s for me, for my reference so the next time I fly with that student, I know what they need to work on. It’s not “FAR-required”, but I can’t see how someone would be an effective CFI (or one-on-one instructor in any field) without something like that.

    As for what’s required by the FAA, I’m sure you’re already familiar with 61.189. That’s pretty much it. If you don’t want to log the flights at all in your logbook, there’s no requirement to. So anything you do put in there is purely optional.

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  2. Mark Kolber on Oct 13, 2016

    FWIW, I do exactly the same as Russ. Instructors who don’t use an outside document to record flight lesson information typically duplicate the comments in student’s entry.

    Either way, I think it serves an important purpose. It’s a record of what you did which can be used for a number of things. Questions about training, a student loses a logbook, cross-check to ensure requirements are being met without needing to look at the student’s.

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