Exporting your logbook for medical and licence renewals

Your logbook is not just a personal record — it is the primary evidence document for medical renewals, licence conversions, rating revalidations, and proficiency checks. When an examiner or AME asks to see your hours, they are asking to see something specific, in a format they can verify quickly. Knowing what they need before you walk in the door saves time and avoids requests to come back with more documentation.

What a medical examiner (AME) typically needs

For a Class 2 or LAPL medical renewal, your AME does not generally need a detailed flight-by-flight printout. What they typically want to see is:

• Total flight time to date
• PIC time
• Recent flying activity (to assess whether you are still an active pilot)
• Date of last flight (some AMEs note this for context on fitness to fly)

A one-page summary showing cumulative totals by category, plus a recent 90-day or 12-month summary, is usually sufficient. If your digital logbook can generate a PDF with those figures clearly labelled, bring that.

What a licence authority or examiner needs

For rating revalidations, renewals, or licence applications, the evidence requirements are more specific.

For SEP(land) revalidation via the hour-building route (Route 1, FCL.740A):

• 12 hours PIC on SEP aircraft in the preceding 12 months
• At least 1 hour dual with an instructor
• 6 take-offs and 6 landings

Your export needs to show these filtered totals clearly. A full flight list filtered to SEP class, in the date window, showing totals at the bottom — PIC hours, dual hours, takeoffs, landings — is exactly what your instructor needs to countersign the declaration.

For an IR or CB-IR revalidation:

• FCL.060(b) requires 3 instrument approaches and 1 hour of instrument time in the 90 days before exercise of the privilege
• The examiner or club sign-off will want to see the relevant simulator or flight entries within that window

For a CPL or ATPL application:

• Total flight time, hours by aircraft class, PIC time, night hours, instrument hours, cross-country hours — all need to be presented and certified
• The CAA's SRG forms specify exactly which hour categories they want; generate a matching summary

What format to use

Most authorities and examiners accept a printed PDF. The key requirements:

1. Your name and licence number should appear on the document
2. Cumulative totals for each major category (total time, PIC, dual, night, IFR, landings)
3. Individual flight entries where the examiner wants to verify specific flights (typical for rating applications, not for medical renewals)
4. Signatures — for a paper export, your instructor's or examiner's signature on a countersigning page; for a digital-only audit, the export timestamp and any electronic signatures your platform supports

For informal purposes (a check flight, a new club checkout), showing the logbook on screen is usually fine. For formal submissions to the CAA, print and sign.

How to produce a useful export quickly

The problem with most logbooks — paper or digital — is that producing a filtered, summarised view takes time if the tooling is not there. What you actually want to be able to generate on demand:

• Full logbook PDF: all flights, all columns, paginated
• Date-range filter: all flights in the last 12 months, or between two specific dates
• Aircraft class filter: SEP only, or MEP only, for class rating evidence
• Category totals: automatically summed at the bottom of any filtered view
• Recent experience summary: last 90 days, last 12 months, with approach counts

If your digital logbook can generate all of these as PDF in under 30 seconds, you are well prepared for any renewal or application. If it takes more than a few minutes of manual work — filtering by hand, copying numbers into a spreadsheet, then printing — that is time pressure you do not need in the week before a medical.

Before the appointment

• Generate the export the day before, not the morning of
• Double-check the totals against any prior totals you have submitted (a discrepancy raises questions)
• If your logbook has a carry-forward total from a paper migration, make sure the export includes it — examiners sometimes flag digital-only records that show suspiciously low hours because the historical total is not visible
• Keep a PDF copy offline (local disk or printed) as a backup — do not rely solely on cloud access for a formal submission

The logbook evidence you provide is the legal record of your flying history. Treat its export with the same care as the original entries.