Checkride

Approving logbook entries

Review a student's submitted logbook entry, add your signature, and finalize it for their record.

When a student finishes a dual lesson and logs the entry on their side, it lands in your Approvals queue as a pending_instructor_approval record. You're the final sign-off before that flight time becomes part of their permanent logbook.

Reviewing an entry

Open the entry from your Approvals queue. You'll see:

  • Date, aircraft, departure/destination
  • Total time, PIC time, dual received, night time, instrument time
  • Day and night landings
  • Remarks the student wrote
  • Any license-requirement IDs they associated with the entry (cross-country, solo, complex, etc.)

Cross-check against your own memory of the lesson. Specifically:

  • Hobbs / Tach times — should match what was on the meter when you returned
  • Time breakdowns — PIC + dual received should equal total time
  • Landings — day vs night classification can be wrong if the student logged after the fact
  • License requirements — the entry can only count toward requirements you actually flew

Approving

Click Approve. You'll be prompted to:

  1. Add a digital signature (typed name or drawn signature image)
  2. Confirm your CFI certificate number
  3. Optionally add remarks the student will see ("Great work on the short-field landings")

On approval, the entry becomes immutable. Status flips to approved. The student is notified.

Once approved, an entry can't be edited — only superseded by a new entry with a correction. This is intentional: the digital signature is meaningful only if the signed payload can't be changed retroactively. The signature's SHA-256 hash of the payload is stored alongside it for audit.

Rejecting

If something's wrong, click Reject. You'll be required to leave instructor remarks explaining what needs to change. The entry's status flips to rejected; the student sees your remarks and can edit and re-submit.

Common rejection reasons:

  • Hobbs/Tach reading doesn't match the meter
  • Wrong aircraft (student logged under a different N-number)
  • Time breakdown doesn't add up

Bulk approval

If you have a queue from a busy weekend, the Approvals page lets you select multiple entries and approve as a batch. You'll still sign and confirm CFI number once per batch, applied to all selected. Use this only when you've reviewed each entry — bulk approve is for convenience, not for skipping the review.

Was this article helpful?

Related articles

Still stuck?

Email support@trycheckride.com and reference this article. We'll get back to you with steps for your specific setup.