One scratchpad line logs the whole leg
Type tail, passenger count and who you flew with on the CDU scratchpad before you shoot the page - OOOIPilot reads all of it off the same photo.
An OOOI page prints the times. It does not print the aircraft registration, it does not print how many passengers were aboard, and it certainly does not print who was in the other seat.
The CDU scratchpad does - if you put them there. Type one line before you photograph the page and OOOIPilot reads the whole thing off the same picture. No extra taps, no typing on the ground.
- The line
Type it into the CDU/MCDU scratchpad, then shoot the page:
N17596/178PAX/CA SMITH
Three segments, separated by slashes. Each one is optional - see below.
- Tail - your N-number or international registration. We look it up in a 500k+ aircraft registry and fill in the make, model and ICAO type for you.
- Passenger count - the number after the first slash. The word PAX is optional; the slash is what matters. N37313/170 works exactly the same.
- Crew or notes - the third segment. Start it with CA or FO and a name (CA SMITH, FO TRAYLOR) and that pilot lands on the crew list for the leg, in the right seat. Write anything else and it lands verbatim in Notes.
- Use as much or as little as you want
Nothing on that line is required. Every segment is optional and the reader takes whatever you give it.
- N77573 - tail only. Type and model still auto-fill. This is the original trick and it still works.
- N17596/178 - tail and passenger count.
- N17596/178PAX/CA SMITH - tail, passengers, and the Captain you flew with.
- N17596/178PAX/BID AVOIDANCE - no crew, so the third segment is simply your note for the leg.
If you do not care to log who you flew with, don't. Anything that isn't a CA or FO name is treated as a remark, not a crew member.
- Why an ACARS feed can't do this
Apps that pull from an ACARS or data-link feed get the times and nothing else. The feed has no idea how many passengers were aboard, who was in the other seat, or that the leg was a bid-avoidance day - none of that is in the message.
The scratchpad is the one place in the flight deck where you can attach that to the same page you are already photographing. It costs one line before you shoot, and it is why an OOOIPilot leg comes back fuller than a data-link import.
- No scratchpad access?
Type the tail into the Tail field on the review card - the type still auto-fills - and set passengers, crew and notes there. The scratchpad only saves you the typing.