Best Practices & Guidelines

Maintaining consistent and accurate flight records ensures that your system remains useful for logbook compliance, performance analysis, and retrospective review. Here are the key practices for effective flight log management.

Location naming consistency

Use identical departure and landing place names across all your flights. This enables reliable filtering and searching:

To make the Leaflet map display the location correctly, be sure to record the GPS coordinates as well (the
flylog.lua and tellog.lua scripts capture them automatically).

• Good: "Main Field", "South Meadow", "Airport A" — consistent, predictable names
• Avoid: "Main Field", "Field A", "The Field", "main field" — inconsistent capitalization and naming

Create a small list of regular flight sites and reuse them verbatim. This also makes it easy to filter all flights from a specific location using the flight list filters.

Telemetry import timing

Import telemetry data as soon as possible after each flight:

• Why: The telemetry CSV file or data is fresh, and you can immediately verify it was captured correctly.
• When: Within hours or days of the flight, not weeks later.
• How: Open the flight record, click "Import Telemetry", select your CSV file, and verify the GPS track displays correctly.

If a telemetry import fails, you'll see error messages describing the problem. It's far easier to troubleshoot format issues while the flight is still fresh in your memory.

Accurate flight counts (T/O and LDG)

Record the correct number of takeoffs and landings for regulatory compliance and logbook accuracy:

• Typical flight: 1 takeoff, 1 landing
• Pattern practice: One flight record with 5 takeoffs and 5 landings (multiple go-arounds)
• Simulated engine out: If you land and immediately take off again in one continuous mission, count each as separate events (e.g., 3 takeoffs, 3 landings for three circuits)

Pilot type selection

Select the correct pilot role for each flight to maintain accurate regulatory records:

• PIC (Pilot in Command): You were the sole person responsible for the flight.
• Dual: Flight performed with a student and instructor; the instructor defines this option when giving control or monitoring the student (common for training scenarios).
• Instruction: This was a training flight where instruction was provided but only a single pilot actively controlled the aircraft (instructor on board or in radio contact).

For most single-operator UAV flights, use PIC. Use Instruction if you're learning from a mentor or running a training scenario.

Meaningful comments

Keep comments concise but informative. Use them to capture mission context:

• Good: "Mapping survey, windy conditions", "Test new battery", "First flight after motor replacement"
• Avoid: "Flight", "Flew today", stream-of-consciousness notes

Meaningful comments help you (or others) remember mission details weeks or months later: weather conditions, equipment changes, mission objectives, or observed issues.

Telemetry data quality

When importing telemetry, verify that the CSV format is correct:

• File size: Maximum 10 MB. Most telemetry files are far smaller (< 1 MB).
• Format: CSV with UTF-8 encoding, LF or CRLF line endings.
• Headers: First row must exactly match the expected column names (time, GPS_coord[0], etc.).
• GPS coordinates: Must be in decimal degrees (e.g., 51.5074 for latitude). Non-decimal formats are rejected.
• Optional columns: Missing columns (e.g., no VSpd for vertical speed) don't break the import. That data simply won't be available.

If import fails, check the error message. Common issues: wrong file extension, empty rows, malformed headers, or no GPS coordinates in any row.

Deletion safety

Remember that deleted flights cannot be recovered. Before deleting:

• Verify you're deleting the correct flight (check the date, time, UAV name, and location)
• If you might need the data later (e.g., for compliance or analysis), create a backup of your flight archive first
• Use the confirmation dialog as a final check — it shows the UAV name and reason for deletion (if applicable)

Active vs. inactive UAVs

When adding a flight, only active UAVs appear in the dropdown. If your aircraft is "inactive" in UAV Management:

• You cannot add new flights to that UAV
• Existing flights remain linked to the inactive UAV but cannot be modified to use an active one
• To reactivate an aircraft, go to UAV Management and toggle its status

Use aircraft lifecycle management to keep your fleet organized: archive old aircraft and reactivate them only when needed.

Light and operations conditions

Set the correct Light Conditions and OPS Conditions for regulatory and logbook tracking:

• Light Conditions:
  • Day: Daylight / within visual flight rules (default)
  • Night: Work performed at night (may require certification in some jurisdictions)
• OPS Conditions:
  • VLOS: Visual Line of Sight (pilot can see aircraft at all times) (default)
  • BLOS: Beyond Visual Line of Sight (requires extended tracking technology or observer)

Review before deletion

Before deleting a flight, open its detail page one last time to confirm it's not important. Check:

• The amount of flight time (important for logbook totals)
• Whether telemetry was imported (losing analysis data)
• Whether there are meaningful comments or mission notes you want to preserve

Questions? Visit the Flight List, Adding Flights, or GPS Track & Map for detailed guidance.