What is it?

The Flight Logger was my Capstone project for my undergraduate program. It is the most advanced application that I have ever built. It was written in Java and constructed using the JavaFX application framework. The program includes 23 interfaces, over 7,000 lines of code, a password encryption system, aircraft/airport lookup tables, a CSV exporter, and several editors for custom aircraft, airports, and runways. The scenario for the project was to create a more technical solution for recording flight logs, specifically for a fictional FBO (Fixed-Base-Operations) company called Lincoln Airways. I imagined that they were a private group of flight instructors that taught students how to fly.

The business proposal was to hire a team of 4 engineers to further maintain, develop, and deploy features for the application after the initial development phase. The lifetime of the project was budgeted for three years at a cost of around $270,000, but the initial project timeline only lists the plans for the first month. This is because the project was planned to meet its deliverables by the end of the next month. In reality, the project took over 3 months to build, but the end result was far better than I had expected.

What does it do?

The Flight Logger’s primary purpose is to store information about previous flights in a way that is both comprehensive and super easy to access. It is intended to act as a replacement to the standard log books that pilots use today. Because of how much detail you could provide in each log, it would not only serve as a good replacement to the standard log but a significant upgrade to it as well.

Additionally, this application can be used as a search engine for finding aircraft and airports. The database for the application contains every aircraft, airport, and runway registered by the Federal Aviation Administration, so you can find a lot of basic information about aircraft and airports in the US just by using this software.

Log-In and Register

To access the core of the application, you must be signed in. The very first screen that displays when you launch the application is the log-in screen. If you already have an account, you would use this screen to log in, but if not, there is a blue text button at the bottom to switch to the register screen. Accounts require a username, email address, password, and password confirmation to be successful. You also have the option to select if the account will be listed as an instructor or not. Instructors have the ability to view the flight logs of other students.

Flight Logs

Once you are signed in, you are directed to a table containing all of the flight logs that you have created. From this screen, you can view, edit, or delete any existing entries, or create a new one entirely. If you are an instructor, you can select a different pilot on the upper left-hand side of the screen. When you select another pilot, the table will show a listing of their flight log data instead. This allows instructors to view and edit their student’s data without having to change accounts.

Viewing a flight log will show you a condensed version of all the flight log data onto a single screen. This is useful if you are just trying to get information about a previous flight without having to go through the process of editing it.

Aircraft

Using the navigation bar at the top, you can get to the other screens of the app. One of the tabs is labeled Aircraft. This takes you to a table listing every registered aircraft in the FAA.

To search for an aircraft, type in the search field and press Search. The table will update to show the most relevant results. If you select any listing and click View, you will get some basic information about that aircraft including the manufacturer, ICAO code, model, number of engines, engine class, wingspan, length, tail height, wheelbase, and wake category. Aircraft are listed in one of two categories on this application: default and custom. You can not edit or remove a default aircraft, but you can create, edit, and delete custom aircraft. That said, you can still reference a custom aircraft in a flight log as if it was an actual registered aircraft.

Airports

Like Aircraft, the Airports screen shows every airport, seabase, airfield, and helipad registered by the FAA. By using the search engine, you can filter the table by the most relevant results. Similar to aircraft, airports are also considered either default or custom, and only custom airports can be created, edited, or deleted.

Select any listing and click View to see more information about the airport. Every airport will have a name, identifier, residing city, state, and Lat./Long. location. If there is a listed CTAF or UNICOM Frequency, those will be listed as well and if the airport has an ATC tower, the checkbox next to Tower will be checked.

Every airport also has a table of runways, airfields, and helipads associated with it. Select any runway and click View to see more information about it. If you are editing a custom airport, Add, Edit, and Delete buttons will be available as well.

Creating a Flight Log

On your Flight Logs screen, clicking Add will transfer you to the Flight Log creation process. The process is made up of 4 screens, each with numerous fields to fill out. The reason that there are so many fields is so that the pilot (or pilot instructor) can clearly identify what happened on every flight. Where was the pilot flying and how long? Was there an instructor on board, and if so where were they flying to qualify for their instrument rating or night rating? With enough provided information, this application could potentially be a one-stop shop for all flight logging needs.

One fancy feature in this flight logging process is that it will dynamically query relevant airports and aircrafts while you type and if a result is selected, the application will automatically fill all relevant fields with that information. This is why referencing/creating aircraft and airports ahead of time would benifit you the flight logging process.

Generating a Report

On the main navigation menu, you can click on the Reports tab to go to the Reports screen. From here you can get a basic summary on all of your previous logs. The Reports screen will add up information from all of your previous logs and display accumulated results for your take-offs, landings, and flight time. At the bottom of the screen, you will see a table of your previous logs to include in a CSV export. Next to the table is a list of columns that you can choose to include in the CSV file. You must include at least one column for the export to work. Once the desired colums are selected, clicking the CSV button will export the data into a csv file that can be imported into any spreadsheet editor for viewing.

Changing Account Information

To get to the accounts screen, click on Account on the main navigation bar. From here, you can change your username, email address, password, and enable or disable instructor privilages. To reset your password, you must first know your current password, type in your new password, and confirm it for the password to be reset.