Aircraft logbooks and records: what to keep and how

Aircraft value is not only hours and paint — it is documentation. A clean, continuous set of records tells a buyer the aircraft was cared for; a gap in the logbook tells them the opposite, and they will price that gap. Keeping the records straight is a habit, not a project.

Which records you need

• Airframe record: the total time in service, inspection entries and major work on the cell.
• Engine record: time since overhaul or since new, and every entry for work performed on it.
• Propeller record: time since overhaul or since new, and its own maintenance entries.
• A record of what has been done: the work performed, who signed it, and when.
• Current status documents: airworthiness and registration certificates, and the 337 forms for major repairs and major alterations.
• A compliance record for each applicable airworthiness directive, with method, date and the next due date when the AD repeats.

What every entry needs

• A description of the work that was actually done — not just 'inspection' or 'annual'.
• The date the work was completed.
• The aircraft's total time in service at that moment, and the engine and propeller times when they are relevant.
• The signature of the person who did or supervised the work, with their certificate type and number.
• For an inspection, a statement that the aircraft was inspected in accordance with the applicable program, and what was found.
• The next due date or due time for that item, so the following owner does not have to guess.

What bites at sale time

• Missing entries: work that was done but never written down is, in practice, work that did not happen.
• Time that does not add up: a tachometer reading that jumps backwards, or an overhaul time that no one can trace.
• Illegible signatures and certificate numbers, or entries made in ink that has faded to nothing.
• Airworthiness directives with no compliance record — the buyer's mechanic will find them and the deal will stall.
• A major avionics install or an exhaust repair with no 337.
• Damage history that is not documented at all; a disclosure is far cheaper than a discovery.

How long to keep things

Under U.S. FAA rules, the owner or operator keeps the maintenance records for at least one year after the work has been performed, and the current-status items — total time, life-limited parts, inspection status, AD status — must be kept and available until they are superseded. In practice, keep everything for the life of the aircraft: it costs nothing to file a PDF and everything to reconstruct a lost history.

How to stay organized

1. 1One physical folder per aircraft, plus one digital folder with the same structure.
2. 2Scan every logbook page and every invoice once, in good light, and keep the originals protected from sun and damp.
3. 3Name files so they sort themselves: tail number, date, item. A folder of 'IMG_2043.jpg' is not a record.
4. 4Attach photos to the maintenance event they belong to, before you forget which aircraft they came from.
5. 5Maintain an open-items list: discrepancies and deferred work, with what is holding them open.
6. 6Review the whole set once a year, before the inspection, when a missing page is still fixable.