Aircraft records kept current by the flying board

An aircraft record stays current when every flown sortie lands on it automatically: the hours, the sortie and who flew it, from the same booking the student and the instructor were logged against. In Saiga Aviation the fleet record holds availability too, so a booked aircraft is genuinely free and one due its check is not bookable.

This guide describes how the record is kept and what has to be true before it can be. It does not say what a maintenance programme must contain, or which records an inspection asks for; neither is on this site, and neither is claimed here.

On paper, an aircraft's hours are written in a tech log after the sortie and totted up later, often into a spreadsheet at the end of the week. The record is right on the day it is reconciled and drifts every day after, so when someone asks what an aircraft has flown, the honest answer is a count rather than a figure.

The same drift hides the cost that matters most to a flying school. Aircraft utilisation becomes a feeling, not a figure, and your most expensive assets sit idle, or get committed twice over, because the record that would have shown it was a week behind.

The fix is not a better tech log. It is to stop the aircraft record being a separate book at all. A sortie flies against its booking, so what was planned and what actually flew are the same entry, and when it is logged the hours are recorded against the student, the aircraft and the instructor at once, instead of in three books that have to agree later.

That is what keeps the aircraft record current without anyone keeping it. Totals add up because they come from the same record, there is an auditable trail behind every hour credited, and the aircraft's time is as current as its last sortie because the sortie is where the time came from.

A fleet record that only holds hours is half a record. In Saiga Aviation the fleet records hold availability too, so when tomorrow's flying is built by matching a student, an available instructor and a free aircraft into one slot, the aircraft side of that match is read off the record rather than remembered. A booked aircraft is genuinely free.

The live sample shows the rule as it runs. Each aircraft carries its hours and the hours to its next check; an aircraft that has reached its check is not bookable, the board says why, and it becomes bookable again only when maintenance releases it on the Fleet tab. The board stops a sortie before it becomes a problem rather than after.

Because the bookings and the record are the same thing, fleet and instructor utilisation come from the same bookings, and an idle aircraft shows up as a figure rather than a feeling. That figure is read at the end of the week without a count, which is the point of keeping the record this way.

From Saiga Aviation SABLE the figure sits in a management dashboard with utilisation, money and compliance in one view; Saiga Aviation VULCAN adds utilisation analytics on top.

Aircraft records are in the base tier, and airworthiness is tracked from there up. The tiers above add the logistics, the checks and the automation around the record.

1. 1.Saiga Aviation ATLAS, the base tier: aircraft records alongside student records and syllabus progression, flight scheduling and logging, and fee tracking. The fleet record the board draws on.
2. 2.Saiga Aviation SABLE, for operating FTOs: fuel and resource logistics, briefing and flight authorisation held on the record, instructor rostering and HRMS, and the management dashboard with utilisation, money and compliance in one view.
3. 3.Saiga Aviation VULCAN, the flagship: utilisation analytics, licence and hour tracking, compliance automation and audit packs, automated workflows including inventory and asset management, and multi-base operation.

The live sample on the Saiga Aviation page, Book, fly, log, runs two aircraft across a morning of hourly slots. Book a sortie, fly it, and one hour lands on the student, the instructor and the airframe from one entry. Open the Fleet tab and each aircraft shows its total hours and the hours to its next check, with the figures as sample data rather than a client's.

Fly one of them twice and it reaches its check. The board stops booking it and says so, the Fleet tab shows it grounded, and a tap on Release after check is what maintenance would do to make it bookable again. The interval in the sample is sample data; your maintenance programme's intervals are not stated on this site.

The record keeps itself only if it starts complete. What to have in place before the first sortie is logged against it.

1. 1.Every aircraft on the fleet record, with its hours as they stand today, so the first sortie lands on a true figure.
2. 2.A rule the whole school keeps: hours are logged from the booking the sortie flew against, never copied from a tech log later.
3. 3.The person who releases an aircraft after a check, named, so the record and the board agree on who makes an aircraft bookable again.
4. 4.Availability on the record, not in anyone's head, so the board reads it rather than asks.
5. 5.The utilisation question you want answered at the end of the week, so the figure comes out of the bookings rather than from a count.