Log a ground run or ferry flight against a maintenance booking

Log a ground run or ferry flight against a maintenance booking

During maintenance, the engine often runs without the aircraft leaving the ground — an end-of-work ground run, a mag check, a post-rebuild leak test. Occasionally the aircraft moves under its own power, flown by someone who isn’t the usual booker — a workshop pilot ferries it to or from a workshop. Both cases need to be recorded on the asset’s logbook so the meters advance, but the usage shouldn’t be attributed to whoever booked the maintenance, and landings/airframe hours shouldn’t tick up for an engine that never left the chocks.

Syndik8 handles both scenarios as usage logs against the maintenance booking, with two knobs on the log form: Used by (who actually operated the asset) and No takeoff (suppresses landings and airframe-hours tracking).

Before you start

• The maintenance booking must already exist. If it doesn’t, see Schedule maintenance over member bookings.
• Any member of the syndicate can log usage against a maintenance booking, not only the admin who scheduled it. That’s deliberate — the pilot who ferried the aircraft, or the admin who supervised the ground run, should be the one who records the meter.
• Admin finalises these entries the same way as any other usage log — see Finalise a booking. Maintenance bookings stay admin-only for finalisation even when the syndicate has auto-finalise turned on.

Steps — ground run by a mechanic

An engine run-up during maintenance. The engine ran; the aircraft didn’t fly.

1. Open the maintenance booking: Syndicate → Calendar → [the maintenance slot], or under Bookings.
2. Tap Log Usage.
3. Enter the engine meter Start and End readings as normal. The meter moves during a ground run — that’s expected.
4. Under Used by, pick the member who supervised the run, or type a free-text name for an external mechanic (for example “Jack at SkyAvionics”). A free-text name records the attribution without creating a user record.
5. Tick No takeoff. This suppresses the landings and touch-and-go fields, and stops airframe-hours from advancing. The engine meter still updates normally.
6. Add Notes — “mag check after plug clean” or similar.
7. Tap Log Usage to save.

The meter on the asset advances, the engine hours accrue toward the next engine-hours-based maintenance item, but the airframe log and landing counter are untouched. Finalisation on the maintenance booking is admin-only.

Steps — ferry flight by someone who isn’t the booker

A relocation flight to or from a workshop, flown by a workshop pilot or another member on behalf of the syndicate.

1. Open the maintenance booking. Again, any syndicate member can log against it — the ferry pilot can do this themselves.
2. Tap Log Usage.
3. Enter the meter readings, departure, arrival, landings, and so on — the same fields as a normal flight.
4. Under Used by, pick the member who flew, or type a free-text name for an external pilot (“J. Smith, workshop ferry pilot”). Do not leave it as yourself if you weren’t the one flying — the logbook attribution is the point of the field.
5. Leave No takeoff unticked. A ferry flight has takeoffs and landings and should accrue airframe hours like any other flight.
6. Add Notes — “Ferry Booker → Workshop for annual” is the kind of line that’s useful three years later.
7. Tap Log Usage to save.

What “Used by” actually does

The Used by value is stored on the usage log either as a link to a syndicate member (when one is picked) or as a free-text name (when a name is typed); exactly one of the two is always set. The asset’s tech log and, in future, the per-pilot logbook views read this field — not the booker field — to answer “who operated this asset on this day.” Defaulting to the current user is right in the vast majority of cases; the exceptions are precisely the ones in this how-to.

A free-text name is a one-off record. If the same external pilot appears frequently, consider inviting them as a member — after they accept, future entries can pick them from the member picker and their logbook accumulates properly.

Interaction with meter continuity

Syndik8 detects meter discrepancies between consecutive usage logs on the same asset — if the engine start reading on a new log doesn’t match the previous log’s end reading, the save still succeeds but the log is flagged for admin review at finalisation time. Ground runs do cross this check: if a mechanic runs the engine for ten minutes and the meter advances from 1234.5 to 1234.7, the next usage log — a member flight — must start at 1234.7, not 1234.5. The admin is asked to reconcile if it doesn’t. Pre-filling the start meter from the preceding log’s end, when the app can see one, avoids the mismatch in the ordinary case.

If it goes wrong

• “Exactly one of Used by / Name must be set” — a validation error if the picker value was cleared. Pick a member from the list or type a free-text name; the field can’t be empty.
• Landings field is visible when I ticked No takeoff — pull the list down to refresh. The No takeoff tick hides the landings, touch-and-go, and block-time fields for aircraft assets; if it’s not hiding, it hasn’t been ticked cleanly yet.
• Meter discrepancy warning appears — the start value doesn’t match the asset’s current reading. Either the reading on the aircraft has changed since the previous log (a ground run that wasn’t logged, for example), or you’ve typed the wrong number. Double-check the reading, then either adjust or save and let an admin reconcile at finalisation.

See also

• Schedule maintenance over member bookings — create the booking this how-to logs against.
• Usage log fields — every field on the usage form, including the Used by and No takeoff semantics.
• Log your first flight — end-to-end tutorial on the non-maintenance path.