What the FAA Inspector Asks For First
An endorsement log that exists only in the back of a paper logbook has a predictable set of failure modes. Pages age and yellow. Ink fades. The solo endorsement from a stage check at a school you left three years ago is in a logbook you shipped home and aren't sure you can locate. The FAA Safety Inspector at the ramp check for your complex endorsement is polite but not patient, and "I'm pretty sure I have that" is not an acceptable response when 14 CFR Part 61 requires a specific endorsement to be in your logbook and available upon request.
Every pilot who has transitioned aircraft types, changed instructors, added ratings, or operated at different schools has a distributed endorsement record problem. The endorsements were given by different CFIs in different logbooks at different times, and the only unified view of what you hold and what's current is the one you build yourself.
The Expiration Date Field Is the One That Matters Most
Aviation endorsements are not uniformly permanent. The solo endorsement is valid for 90 days and requires renewal to remain current. The flight review endorsement triggers a 24-calendar-month currency clock. Knowledge test endorsements carry their own validity windows. A student pilot or certificate applicant who doesn't actively track expiration dates against the current date is the one who discovers on the morning of a solo cross-country that the endorsement expired three weeks ago.
The Expiration Date field per endorsement, combined with the endorsement Date field, gives you the data to run that check. Sort by Expiration Date to see what expires soonest. Filter for endorsements expiring within 30 days and you have your renewal action list. Without this structure, currency tracking requires reading every endorsement entry individually and doing date arithmetic on each one — the kind of task that gets skipped until it becomes a problem.
CFI# per endorsement is the field that satisfies the regulatory requirement: 14 CFR 61.19 requires that an endorsement include the instructor's certificate number. Recording the CFI# in the database entry creates a searchable reference that's separate from whatever the instructor wrote in the margin of the logbook, which is important if the handwriting is unclear or if you need to verify a CFI's certificate status.
Signature and Photo as the Digital Backup
The Signed field — a digital signature capture — combined with the Picture field for the physical logbook endorsement creates a dual-record structure. The physical logbook remains the primary regulatory document. The database entry is the backup that survives a lost or damaged logbook.
An instructor's signature captured digitally at time of endorsement, with the CFI# and date, is the reconstruction record you need if the physical logbook is ever lost before a flight review or certificate application. It won't replace the original for regulatory purposes, but it documents enough to support a declaration of lost records and an application to reestablish currency through the appropriate FAA process.
The aircraft registration field links the endorsement to a specific aircraft, which is relevant for type-specific endorsements: complex aircraft, high-performance, tailwheel, pressurized, and others that are aircraft-specific rather than category-and-class endorsements. When you need to demonstrate you hold an endorsement for the specific make and model you're operating, the registration field makes the connection explicit.
The Flight link to the logbook database entry is the integration point that makes this part of a full suite rather than a standalone record — tying each endorsement to the specific flight entry that triggered it.