How do I view and use the logbook in a flight simulator?

Open your simulator’s pilot profile or records area, select Logbook, then filter or open an entry to review aircraft, route, duration, take-offs and landings. Use those entries to track practice and aircraft time, but finish each flight through the simulator’s normal end-flight procedure or it may not save the record.

Microsoft Flight Simulator, FSX, Prepar3D, X-Plane and DCS all maintain some form of pilot history, but their menus and definitions of a completed flight differ.

Where is the logbook in each flight simulator?

In most simulators, the logbook sits in the main menu’s pilot, profile or records section rather than inside the aircraft cockpit.

Menu wording can change between editions and interface updates. If there is no visible Logbook button, check the profile attached to your active user account rather than the flight-planning screen.

How do I use a flight simulator logbook?

Use the logbook as a record of what you practised, not simply as a total-hours counter.

1. Complete the flight normally. Park after landing, apply the parking brake, shut down if appropriate, and use the simulator’s normal end-flight or return-to-menu command. Allow any debrief or save process to finish before closing the program.
2. Open the correct pilot profile. A different local profile, platform account or cloud save can have a separate flight history.
3. Find the new entry. Sort or filter by date, aircraft, departure airport or arrival airport if those controls are available.
4. Check how the flight was recorded. Compare the route, duration, take-offs and landings with what you actually flew. An obviously short duration or missing destination often means the session started or ended outside the simulator’s expected workflow.
5. Track useful practice. Record approaches, circuits, crosswind landings, instrument procedures, night flying and aircraft-specific time. Built-in logbooks rarely capture enough detail to explain what went well or badly, so keep separate notes when training towards a goal.
6. Export or summarise the data. FSX and Prepar3D users can use our logbook statistics viewer with CSV export when the built-in display is too limited.

Why is my flight missing from the logbook?

A missing entry usually means the flight did not trigger the simulator’s completion logic, the wrong profile is open, or the history file has stopped loading correctly.

• The simulator was force-closed, crashed or returned to the desktop before saving.
• The flight began airborne, used slew or teleportation, or ended before a recognised landing and shutdown event.
• AI assistance, time acceleration or an add-on changed how the flight was controlled or ended.
• The entry was saved to another pilot profile or overwritten during cloud synchronisation.
• The simulator recorded a landing incorrectly; bounces may produce extra landings, while touch-and-goes are not counted consistently across products.
• The local logbook or profile data is corrupt.

Test the system with one ordinary circuit in a default aircraft: start on the ground, take off without slew or time acceleration, make a full-stop landing, end the flight normally and then inspect the logbook. If that entry appears, repeat the test with your usual aircraft or add-ons until the cause becomes clear.

If the FSX logbook will not open or new flights remain invisible, back up its data before trying our recovery tool for blocked or corrupt FSX entries. Do not delete or edit the original while FSX is running.

What do the logbook numbers actually mean?

Logbook fields are simulator statistics, and similarly named fields do not always measure the same thing.

• Flight time may mean total session time, engine-running time or airborne time.
• Take-offs and landings depend on event detection, so rejected take-offs, touch-and-goes and bounced landings can produce unexpected totals.
• IFR time may reflect a filed IFR plan, instrument weather or a simulator-specific flag; check the product’s definition before using it for proficiency tracking.
• Night time is normally derived from the simulated clock and lighting conditions, not necessarily the legal day-and-night definition used by an aviation authority.
• Departure and arrival can be blank or inaccurate when a session starts airborne, changes airport through a menu, or ends away from a recognised parking area.

For consistent records, use the same start and end routine each time. Do not compare total hours between simulators without first checking how each one measures duration.

Can a simulator logbook replace a real pilot logbook?

No—a built-in flight simulator logbook is not, by itself, an official record of real-world flight time, licence experience or recency.

Time in an approved training device may be creditable only when the applicable aviation rules, device approval, training purpose and instructor requirements are met. Record such training in the format required by your aviation authority; do not rely on an entertainment simulator’s automatic history as evidence.

How should I back up or export my logbook?

Close the simulator before copying its logbook or profile data, and keep dated backups outside the active user-data folder.

For X-Plane, preserve the relevant files under Output/logbooks. Other simulators may store history inside a profile database or synchronised save rather than an editable text file. Cloud synchronisation is not a substitute for a backup because it can also propagate an unwanted change or corrupt record.

If your simulator has no supported export function, maintain a parallel spreadsheet with the date, simulator, aircraft, route, duration, conditions, approaches, landings and practice notes. Avoid directly editing internal profile databases merely to correct a statistic; one malformed record can make the whole logbook unreadable.