In this Newsletter:
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You're Hired!
Steps to Getting Hired in Today's Industry
As we all know, the professional aviation industry is
never a sure thing. With Independence Air's recent
shut down after filing bankruptcy, it is certainly an eye
opener that this can really happen, the business we fly for
can actually close their doors and we can find ourselves in
unemployment lines. Many pilots are furloughed and
hoping the aviation industry will turn around, but the
rebound seems long overdue with many unknowns still on the
horizon.
With that said, there are a lot of pilots competing for
the available jobs and it's up to us to do everything we can
to make ourselves stand above the others seeking the same
jobs. As in the past, wearing the right suit, the
right colors, the right attitude, presentable appearance,
it's all important. There are elements we have control
over to help us get hired ranging from our physical fitness,
personal appearance, and our presentation for the interview.
When going for any job interview, the interviewer is not
only measuring your experience and best fit for the job, but
also measure your eagerness to be hired. "Do you
really want this job?" All of which are part of the
"competency" package. Remember, they are not trying to
do you a favor, they are looking for people that are in the
best interest of the company. It's your job to prove
you are in the best interest of the company you are seeking
employment.
This newsletter is aimed to help you stand above the rest
in the hiring process. We have spent nearly 9 years on
Logbook Pro and honing it to be the premier logbook solution
available hands down. We are now hearing airlines are
expecting to see Logbook Pro generated logbooks brought to
the interview representing your accuracy and devotion to
your career. A presentation providing an employer
seeking your employment the confidence the numbers are
accurate and representative of your experience.
Interviewers are accustomed to the Logbook Pro generated
information and know exactly where to look to find what they
are interested in. Imagine handing over sloppy
logbooks from the days you started flying, hard to read, no
real summaries, and potential for accuracy issues. It
may be nostalgic to some to see those old logbooks as many
pilots in their 40's and 50's may have, but when that young
30'ish year old puts technology to the task, he or she will
outshine those nostalgic artifacts as the information an
interviewer is looking for will be easily found and the
aviation experience better represented. It's
one thing to "weigh" the number of logbooks, it's another to
support your aviation experience with the facts.
We cannot stress enough to invest the small job security
fee of an electronic logbook topped with a quality leather
binder to ensure your aviation experience is presented
unmatched by others. With Logbook Pro's ease of data
entry and a few days of hard work, you'll have an unrivaled
logbook solution presentable for any interview. Show
them how much you want this job, hand over your logbooks
produced by Logbook Pro.
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Arm
yourself with Logbook Pro
Logbook Pro has evolved significantly over the past nine
years and evolved mainly from customer feedback and feature
requests. As the aviation industry is modernizing from
prior paper only logging to now electronic logbooks as the
defacto standard, Logbook Pro is the answer to your modern
flight logbook needs. In the theme of getting hired,
we first need to get your aviation experience into Logbook
Pro. As you begin entering your data, you will see why
Logbook Pro has become the leader in the industry.
Entering your flight experience is fast and easy taking
advantage of the PC for automation with features such as
AutoFill and the ability to enter flights in any order.
In preparation for any interview, accuracy is paramount.
Imagine going into an interview and your solo time exceeds
your duration! Try finding that error in 25 years of
flying experience. Logbook Pro has built in error
checking. Click the icon on the toolbar and Logbook
Pro will automatically check your logbook for the most
common errors such as a solo entry exceeding the duration
value on a given flight. Logbook Pro will stop and
allow you to the correct the error and proceed with error analysis.
Logbook Pro is also watching as you type, therefore, common
mistakes that are made when entering a flight will
immediately be caught. One of the major "cool"
features in Logbook Pro is that you do not have to log
aircraft specific information such as ASEL, AMEL, etc.
Logbook Pro uses the power of the PC. Configure your
Aircraft once in the Options...Aircraft area, then when
making a flight and you choose the Type and Duration,
Logbook Pro needs nothing else, it will reference the Type
when generating reports and automatically calculate your
AMEL, ASEL, etc. time columns. This not only
streamlines logbook data entry but also eliminates the
opportunity for error.
You'll soon learn how Logbook Pro can relieve the stress
of keeping up with due dates for medicals, flight reviews,
currencies, and more with its alert system. Creating
currencies is easy, adding medicals to the History area is
even easier, Logbook Pro will do the rest.
I'm sure you've heard of the dreaded stories of people
having their logbooks stolen out of their car, or lost when
it falls out of your flight bag. Can you imagine
trying to recreate your logbook? Nothing will bring
back that aviation experience so accurately logged once upon
a time. With Logbook Pro those worries are over.
You can easily backup your Logbook Pro data to a single .BAK
file which can then be copied to a floppy disk, CD-ROM, or
uploaded to a safe location. Keeping a copy of your
backup at a relatives house, safe deposit box, etc. will
ensure a catastrophe of any sort will not cause you to lose
the precious information your future in aviation relies on.
That alone should be enough to convince any pilot an
electronic logbook is a must have.
Once you've taken the time to enter your aviation
experience into Logbook Pro you'll now get to do the fun
part, creating the presentation as outlined below.
The hard work is over, now it's time to see all of those
great flying experiences represented professionally with the
many reports and charts Logbook Pro provides.
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Create the
Presentation
The best part of using Logbook Pro is learning about your
flying experience with the fun tools such as the Analyzer.
Using the Analyzer you can filter data based on criteria to
find out how much "Night Cross-Country" time you may have,
or how much instrument time in a particular type, or even
more detailed, by specific N-Number. Airline
applications are nearly impossible to fill out from a
traditional logbook, however, with Logbook Pro and the
plethora of reports and the powerful "Analyzer," there is
nothing you can't extract from Logbook Pro. And with
airlines such as SouthWest offering a 0.3 addition to all
military sorties, the Analyzer has a "correction" system
available to do the math for you separated out by Type!
But the fun continues, you have tons of reports available
to not only wow your interviewer, but more importantly,
provide a sharp and professional presentation to accurately
represent your flying experience. Create a nice cover
page for your logbook on the blank leading sheet Logbook Pro
provides then follow that with a sharp traditional "Jeppesen"
paper logbook layout. The "open face" reading style is
supported, starting from a left page and going through to
the right page to see all facets of your flight. Sign
each page (or use a image signature) to certify the
information is true and correct to the best of your
knowledge and you now have a logbook that is perfect
for any presentation. You may ask about endorsements...
Use our
special endorsement pages to capture your endorsements
(signatures) as they are accomplished and place these pages
in the back of your leather binder solution.
After the "basic" reports are produced on the fine
quality heavy bond pre-drilled paper, explore the other
reports Logbook Pro provides. A unique report that is
of great value, designed specifically for interviews is the
"Percentages" report. Some interviewers want to see
what percentage of your flying is in instrument conditions,
at night, or cross-country. This is a valuable report
that can separate you from those that simply fly around the
"flag-pole" to build time. Print your Analyzer display
or also checkout the Aircraft Configuration Summary report
for a great break down of flight times. Print out your
"History" report to show your medicals, flight reviews, and
other events that represent your flying experience.
Print out the reports under the Miscellaneous section to
show your recency of experience. Configure your
Summary Bar to show lookback information as you see fit.
You can also use the powerful "Report Combiner" to batch
print many of these reports in one shot. Explore the many summary reports in the Flight Log section
of the reporting area to add additional information to your
presentation. Pictures are worth a thousand
words, as are charts. Explore the various charts and
print on your favorite color printer and have a nice,
colorful, visual representation to top off your
presentation.
As a pilot seeking an aviation career, you probably have
a significant amount of flying time under your belt.
With that said, this narrows down the leather binders you
would want to use to present a large amount of flying
experience. The two binders of choice are either the
98-004 Desk Model or Carry Model binders, shown below.
Prior to purchasing a leather binder, see
how much paper you are going to need to print your complete
logbook plus extra pages for safe keeping. We
recommend the "Split Reports" series of reports. Run
this report in Logbook Pro by clicking Reports...Split
Reports...Jeppesen Style..Jeppesen Style Flight Log.
This report is optimized for the above binders. When
running the report, check the page number on the report
itself after navigating to the last page. If intending
to print front/back, which is expected, you will require at
least half the total page count. Do not look at the
page number in the navigation toolbar, look at the page
number on the last page of the actual report. Once you
have the number of pages required, you can then proceed to
order a 98-004 series binder in addition to the paper
products associated with this binder for the most
professional appearance.
Good luck at your job interview and we hope
Logbook Pro can help you stand above the rest. Let us
know how Logbook Pro helped you at your interviews.
Once you get the "you're hired" call, share a
testimonial of your experience for others to learn from.
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After the
Hire: Airline Pilot's Daily Aviation Logbook
Now that you have your airline job secured, it's time to
arm yourself with the perfect PDA logbook for tracking FAR
121 specific criteria. Airline Pilot's Daily Aviation
Logbook (aka. "APDL") is a custom logbook solution designed
to replace "the red book" and track information relating
specifically to your airline career. You can import
your companies schedule/bid package directly into APDL with
our FREE schedule importer (click
here for a list of supported import filters).
After the schedule is imported, simply update with the
actual information once the trip is flown.
Additionally, track expenses, per diem, meals & lodging,
crew rest, duty schedules, equipment information and receive
alerts for limitations as set in the extensive preferences
area.
There's so much packed into this powerful PDA logbook you
have to see it for yourself. As with all of our
software, we want you to use it risk free prior to purchase
so you can feel comfortable with the product, explore all
features, then purchase when you are satisfied. APDL
has a 90-day risk free trial period, and once the PDA
logbook is registered, will seamlessly integrate with
Logbook Pro, the world leading electronic logbook solution.
Syncing data from APDL to Logbook Pro is easy using the free
SingleSync software available on our web site, soon to be
directly integrated within Logbook Pro itself.
Click here to learn more about APDL, the
Schedule Importer,
SingleSync, and our complete
documentation. When ready to purchase,
click here
and get your immediate license for unrestricted use of APDL
on your Palm OS device or Pocket PC.
There's nothing like returning home hitting the sync
button and going out golfing! Save time, persist your
logbook data to a permanent medium, and rest assured your
logbook is safe and secure, printable for any need that may
arise in the future.
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Windows Mobile 5 News
We are working hard to bring all of our
Pocket PC software up to speed with Microsoft's new Windows
Mobile 5 operating system. The conflict is not
actually with Windows Mobile 5 but ActiveSync 4 which is required for use with Windows Mobile
5. Recently we released an update to APDL's SingleSync
to work with ActiveSync 4 (and prior versions) and within a
few days should have the Windows Based APDL Schedule
Importer to also work with ActiveSync 4 and earlier.
We still have one item left to round out our compatibility
and that is Logbook Pro's Pocket PC Companion, slated for
the end of February.
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Windows
Update: Please install the Microsoft .NET Framework
2.0
You may have heard the buzz called the ".NET Framework"
and wonder if it's something you need? The answer is
YES! Our development technologies will begin to take
advantage of this new development platform which has
actually been out for several years now. APDL for
the Pocket PC runs on the ".NET Compact Framework" and our
new software update system is going to require the Microsoft
.NET Framework 2.0. Therefore, if you use any of our
software products and want to check for updates, it will
require the .NET Framework 2.0 on your PC.
If you have not already done so, please run Windows
Update and get the non-critical update labeled ".NET
Framework 2.0." It will not affect any other
applications on your computer and should not require the PC
to be rebooted. If you do not see it listed in Windows
Update, it may already be installed on your system.
You can verify by checking whether it is listed in the
Windows Control Panel Add/Remove programs area. You
can download the .NET Framework 2.0 outside of Windows
Update by
clicking here.
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Upcoming
Releases
We're working hard to continually improve
our software and February has several exciting updates in
store. We are continuing to update our software for
Windows Mobile 5 and ActiveSync 4 compatibility. This
week should bring our updated Schedule Importer (Version
6.1) for Airline Pilot's Daily Aviation Logbook (APDL)
completing APDL's compatibility with Windows Mobile 5 and
ActiveSync 4. For those using the Windows Based
schedule importer, it is not currently compatible with
ActiveSync 4 and the web based importers on the
APDL Portal
must be used.
The end of this week should also bring a
minor update to APDL's SingleSync (6.1.2) to correct a
problem introduced in a recent update if the A/C Type
(including spaces) set in SingleSync is greater than 10
characters in length. An interim fix is to shorten the
default A/C Type, however, the upcoming patch will resolve
this issue. In case you didn't know, the SingleSync
6.1 series now references Logbook Pro's N-Numbers (Ident's)
to back track the A/C Type. For airline pilot's flying
multiple types, you can now seamlessly integrate APDL to
Logbook Pro with correct Type data. We are adding one
new feature to the upcoming SingleSync which will add the
Flight Number to be imported in the Logbook Pro remarks
field, a commonly requested feature. With the next
version of Logbook Pro we are intending to actually
integrate SingleSync directly into Logbook Pro, making the
integration of APDL and Logbook Pro even tighter.
Last but not least, we have exciting
updates coming for Logbook Pro near the end of February.
We can't let the secret out just yet, but you'll love what's
soon to come! We are also working on the Windows
Mobile 5 and ActiveSync 4 compatibility for the Logbook Pro
Pocket PC Companion which will also make the installation
and synchronization easier and more reliable than ever
before.
One final note, we will be refreshing all software
builds near the end of February or early March to
incorporate our new software update utility. As we are
removing the InstallShield Update System now in use, in
order to check for updates it will be necessary to update
our software products to the new versions when this time
comes. Stay tuned...
For a list of the most recent versions,
you can visit the following page at any time:
http://www.logbookpro.com/VersionInfo.aspx
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