A Pilot Logbook and Credentials Vault That Stays Current On Its Own
Pilot Logbook, Credentials Vault & Currency Tracking is part of AviationAlley. Every pilot and instructor on an operator's roster carries a 14 CFR 61.51 logbook and a stack of credentials — pilot certificate, medical, type ratings, English proficiency — each with its own expiration clock. Kept by hand, the logbook lags reality and a lapsed medical or out-of-currency instructor only surfaces when someone goes to schedule them. AviationAlley is pilot logbook and credentials tracking software designed to keep both current as a byproduct of running operations: the 61.51 logbook is built to auto-fill from completed flights and import or export a ForeFlight CSV, while a credentials vault holds the documents and is designed to warn you before anything expires. AviationAlley is a pre-launch product opening to a founding cohort of operators; this is the crew-records layer being built with those founding operators, not a tool running in production today.
The problem: logbooks lag and credentials lapse quietly
A pilot logbook is a regulatory record under 14 CFR 61.51, but in practice it is maintained by hand — entered after the fact from memory, a kneeboard scribble, or a tach reading nobody wrote down. The longer the gap between the flight and the entry, the more the logbook drifts from what actually happened, and the harder it is to prove currency or experience when an examiner, an insurer, or an FAA inspector asks.
Credentials are worse, because nothing prompts you. A pilot certificate, a first- or second-class medical, a type rating, English proficiency — each expires on its own schedule, and a pilot whose medical has lapsed cannot exercise the privileges of the certificate. When those documents live in a filing cabinet or a shared drive, the expiry is invisible until the day someone tries to schedule that crew member and discovers they are ineligible. For instructors, currency is the same trap: the person you counted on to fly tomorrow turns out to be out of currency today.
Staff workload and time off compound it. A chief pilot juggling who is current, who is recurrent-due, who is on vacation, and who is approaching a medical deadline is reconciling four separate lists that were never designed to talk to each other — usually in a spreadsheet that is already a week stale.
- 61.51 logbook entries made from memory days later, so the record drifts from the flights actually flown
- Certificate, medical, type-rating, and English-proficiency expirations tracked in a binder no system watches
- A lapsed medical or expired rating discovered only when someone goes to schedule that crew member
- Instructor currency kept on a separate list, so an out-of-currency CFI slips onto tomorrow's schedule
- Flight-attendant recurrent training under 121.421 tracked apart from everyone else's deadlines
- Staff time-off requests and recurrent-training due dates living in different tools the chief pilot reconciles by hand
How AviationAlley's logbook and credentials vault are built to work
AviationAlley is designed so the 61.51 logbook fills itself from the operation. When a flight or session is completed in the platform, the logbook is built to draft the matching entry automatically — dates, aircraft, and times pulled from the activity that already ran — so the pilot reviews and confirms rather than transcribing from scratch. For history that lives elsewhere, the logbook is designed to import a ForeFlight CSV (with duplicate entries detected on re-import so the same file doesn't double-post) and to export the record back out, so a pilot's logbook is never locked inside one system.
The credentials vault is designed to hold each crew member's documents as first-class records — pilot certificate, medical certificate, type rating, English proficiency, IACRA endorsements, and more — each with an expiry date and an uploaded copy of the document itself. Pilots are designed to maintain their own credentials, while a manager view is built to roll the whole roster up by status and days-to-expiry. A daily expiry-alert job is designed to sweep every credential and surface what is approaching its deadline, so an expiring medical raises its hand weeks out instead of on the ramp.
Around those two records sits the rest of the crew picture. Staff currency and workload views are designed to show who is current and how utilized each instructor is; staff time-off is built as a request-and-approval flow (vacation, sick, personal, FAA training) the manager reviews; and a four-month recurrent-events calendar is designed to gather every upcoming deadline — medicals, recurrent training, and more — into one month-by-month grid colored by whether each item is on track, due soon, or overdue. These dates are read straight from the records you already keep, not re-entered.
- 61.51 logbook entries designed to draft automatically from completed flights and sessions for the pilot to confirm
- ForeFlight CSV import with duplicate detection on re-import, plus CSV export, so logbooks stay portable
- A credentials vault for certificates, medicals, type ratings, English proficiency, and endorsements, each with the document uploaded and an expiry date
- A daily expiry-alert sweep designed to surface credentials approaching their deadline weeks ahead
- Manager rollups designed to show the whole roster by status and days-to-expiry, not one record at a time
- Staff currency and instructor workload/utilization views so an out-of-currency CFI is visible before scheduling
- Staff time-off as a request-and-approval flow the manager reviews, alongside the crew records
What's included: a four-month recurrent calendar and flight-attendant training
Because the logbook, credentials, currency, and time-off all live on the same platform AviationAlley is building, the four-month recurrent-events calendar is designed to pull from each of them at once — a single bird's-eye grid where a chief pilot can see what is expiring across the roster over this month and the next three, color-coded so overdue and due-soon items stand out. The dates come from the underlying records, so the calendar is built to reflect the same source of truth the rest of the platform runs on rather than a separate schedule someone maintains by hand.
Flight-attendant recurrent training under 14 CFR 121.421 is designed into the same crew-records layer for operators who carry cabin crew. Each flight attendant gets a recurrent-training record on the same expiry clock as the pilots, so cabin-crew deadlines surface on the same calendar and through the same daily alert sweep rather than in a separate binder. As a pre-launch product, this crew-records layer is being finalized with a founding cohort of operators — the capabilities described here are how the logbook, vault, currency, time-off, recurrent calendar, and flight-attendant training are built to work, not a report from a system already running in production.
- A four-month recurrent-events grid that pulls medical, recurrent-training, and other deadlines from the records you already keep
- Color-coded on-track / due-soon / overdue states so the highest-priority items stand out at a glance
- Flight-attendant recurrent training under 14 CFR 121.421 kept on the same expiry clock as pilot credentials
- Cabin-crew deadlines surfaced on the same calendar and daily alert sweep as the rest of the roster
- One crew-records layer for logbooks, credentials, currency, time-off, and recurrency instead of four disconnected tools
- Built with a founding cohort of operators as a pre-launch product, not presented as live in production today
Frequently asked questions
Does the 61.51 logbook really fill itself in?
It is designed to. When a flight or training session is completed in AviationAlley, the logbook drafts the matching 61.51 entry automatically — dates, aircraft, and times pulled from the activity that already ran — and the pilot reviews and confirms it rather than transcribing from scratch. AviationAlley is a pre-launch product, so this is how the logbook is built to work with the founding cohort, not a report from a system already in production.
Can I bring in or take out my existing logbook?
Yes. The logbook is designed to import a ForeFlight CSV, with duplicate entries detected on re-import so the same file does not double-post, and to export the record back out as CSV. The goal is that a pilot's logbook history is never locked inside one system.
How does it warn me before a medical or rating expires?
Each credential in the vault — certificate, medical, type rating, English proficiency, endorsements — carries an expiry date alongside an uploaded copy of the document. A daily alert job is designed to sweep every credential and surface what is approaching its deadline weeks ahead, and those same dates feed the four-month recurrent-events calendar, so an expiring medical raises its hand long before someone tries to schedule that crew member.