Aircraft types, and what editing one changes

What this does

Explains what an aircraft type is, and how to find, edit and delete one.

It also says exactly which fields a type edit can correct on the tails that were still following the type on them.

Before you start

• A profile is open and you’re on Aircraft Hangar (→ E1).
• A type edit can correct the tails on it, but only where it’s genuinely a correction. A field on a tail only changes when both are true: the edit actually changed that field on the type, and the tail was still following the type there rather than holding a value you set by hand. The reference table below lists every field this can touch.
• Deleting a type can’t be undone from here, and the app refuses while any aircraft or flight still points at the type. If all you want is a tidier list, narrow it with the filter instead.

Steps

1. Tap Aircraft in the navigation, then the Aircraft Types tab (Types on a narrow window). A type is the model an airframe is; a tail is one physical aircraft, and every tail in the Hangar points at a type. Once you’ve flown at least one type, and with no search running, the list has two sections: My Flown Types, the models you’ve actually flown, and All Other Types, the rest of the catalogue. Otherwise it’s one unlabelled list.

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2. Find the type with Search or Filter. Search before you create anything: the app already ships the ICAO Doc 8643 catalogue — 10,020 entries covering 2,640 designators. Designators aren’t unique: P28A alone has 72 entries, one per manufacturer and variant. (The Filter Aircraft Types sheet is described under Reference: the filter sheet below.)
3. Tap the card. The detail screen is headed Aircraft Type, subtitled designator · model, with sections Overview, Yearly Activity, Hours by Role, Top Tails and Top Routes. The Top Tails card, titled Top Registrations — Specific tails of this type ranked by hours — is the fastest way to see which tails an edit here could touch.

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4. Tap Edit in the header. The form, titled Edit Type, has three required fields on its Identity tab: ICAO Designator (e.g. C172), ICAO Description (e.g. L1P) and Model Name (e.g. Skyhawk). Organization / Employer on the same tab is the manufacturer.

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5. On Specs, set Category and Class, the Performance & Systems checkboxes, and Type Rating. Leave Type Rating on Derive unless you know the derived answer is wrong (see below the steps).

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6. Fill in Engine(s), Avionics & Type and Gear Config with what’s true of the model. Anything true of one tail alone belongs on the aircraft instead — set there, it stays put even if this type is corrected later (see Gotchas).
7. Tap Save.

Type Rating is a dropdown reading Requires a type rating, with the options Derive, Required and Not required. Its helper says what it’s for: Scopes passenger-landing currency (FAA 61.57). Derive uses engine type and weight class; override for edge cases. Simulator Device (optional) is on the Specs tab too, and does a different job altogether (→ E4).

To create a type that really isn’t in the catalogue, tap Add on Aircraft Hangar and choose Add Aircraft Type. The same form opens, titled Add Aircraft Type.

How to tell it worked

The form closes and the type card shows the new details — the model name, and a spec line like 2x Turbofan • MEL. The real check is on the tails: open one of your tails of that type and look at its Specs, Engine(s), Avionics & Type and Gear Config tabs. Any field that was following the type’s old value, and that this edit changed, now holds the corrected value. A field you’d set by hand on that tail is untouched. If that isn’t what you expected, read the worked example at the end of this guide.

If something goes wrong

Deleting a type

Tap Delete in the header, beside Edit.

If any aircraft or flight still points at the type, the app refuses with Type Still In Use: … cannot be deleted: N aircraft and/or M flights still reference it. / Move them onto the type you are keeping first — edit each aircraft and pick its type again. Deleting the type now would leave those records pointing at nothing. / To tidy the list instead, narrow it with Filter. Tap OK. There’s no merge for types, so the only way to bring that count down is to open each aircraft and each flight and point it at a different type by hand.

Otherwise you get Delete Aircraft Type? / Are you sure you want to delete … ? / Nothing in your logbook references it. The deletion will also reach your paired devices on the next sync. Tap Delete.

You’re back on the Aircraft Types list, and a message reads Aircraft type deleted. Like every delete in the app, the type is hidden rather than erased, and the deletion reaches your other devices on their next sync.

Reference: the filter sheet

Filter opens a sheet titled Filter Aircraft Types, with the sections SORT BY, CATEGORY, CLASS, ENGINE and MANUFACTURER. The sorts are Most Flown, Recently Flown, Most Flights, Manufacturer A–Z and Designator A–Z.

Reference: what a type edit touches

This guide calls a type edit correcting its tails the cascade. A field below only changes on a tail when both are true: this edit changed that field on the type, and the tail’s own value matched what the type held immediately before the save (or was blank, meaning it was following the type). A tail with nothing to correct isn’t touched at all — it isn’t marked as changed, and nothing is sent to your other devices.

The Avionics row is the one to remember. Three of the four fields in the Avionics section of the aircraft form can cascade; the fourth, HUD Configuration, never does (→ E5), because two tails of one type really do differ. Weights are left alone for the same reason. Everything else on those four tabs is treated as a property of the model, as long as the tail is still following it.

Reference: the three snapshots

A snapshot is a value copied onto a flight when it’s saved. Every flight carries three, copied from the aircraft, and they follow different rules.

The organization detail screen states the operator rule in these words: Flight totals are derived from the operator snapshot taken at each flight’s save time, so reassigning an aircraft to a different operator later will not rewrite history. (→ E8)

What that means when you plan an edit: to fix a wrong type on old flights, change the tail’s type and the flights follow. To fix a wrong operator on old flights, the tail isn’t the place, because each flight already holds its own answer.

One rule sits under all of it: a flight’s type is the type it was saved with; a flight saved without one uses whatever type its aircraft is on now. Every “which flights are on this type” question in the app — analytics, currency, exports — is answered that way.

Gotchas

The cascade skips tails you deleted. A deleted tail is never rewritten and never sent to your other devices. There’s nothing to avoid — this is the safe direction.

A rename or an unrelated fix cascades nothing. The cascade only changes a field when the new value differs from what the type held before the save. Fixing a typo in the model name, correcting the ICAO description, or changing the type rating touches none of the fields in the reference table, so no tail changes and nothing is sent on the next sync.

Two designators that look identical are two different types. The ICAO Designator field is a plain text box: it doesn’t check the catalogue, look for duplicates or warn you. Type C172 by hand and you’ve created a second C172. The flight picker then offers you both, your hours split between them, and there’s no merge for types — Find Duplicates doesn’t scan them (→ E10). Always search the list and pick an existing entry. Create a type only when the search really comes back empty.

Pick the entry, not the code. Because one designator covers many catalogue entries, choosing by code alone can attach your aircraft to a variant with the wrong weight class or engine — which the cascade can then write onto that tail. Read the manufacturer and model on the entry you pick, especially for designators shared by a business variant and an airliner.

What you set on a tail survives a type edit, whenever you set it. The app spots a hand-set value by comparing the tail’s value with what the type held immediately before the save — not by when you set it. Ticking Floats on a tail last year, or five minutes before you fix an unrelated typo on the type, works the same way: once the tail’s value differs from the type’s, it stays as you set it. The one exception is a hand-set value that happens to equal the type’s current value. The app can’t tell that apart from following the type, so the next correction to that field will change it.

Worked example

You fly three Cessna 172s on the same type, whose Engine Count has always read 1 — wrong; this variant is a twin. N12345 and N67890 both show Engine Count: 1 on their own Engine(s) tab, following the type. N54321 shows 4, set by hand some time ago for a reason that has nothing to do with reality.

You open Aircraft Types, tap the card, tap Edit, go to Engine(s), change Engine Count from 1 to 2, and tap Save.

What happens:

• N12345 and N67890 matched the type’s previous value (1), so they were still following it. Both now read Engine Count: 2, and both are marked as changed and sent on the next sync.
• N54321 held 4, which didn’t match the type’s previous value (1). It’s treated as your own setting and isn’t touched — still 4, not marked as changed, not sent anywhere.
• Nothing else changed on any of the three aircraft, because no other field on the type changed.

Had you only fixed a typo in the model name, none of the three aircraft would have been touched at all.

And the order doesn’t matter: setting Engine Count to 4 on N54321 before or after today’s correction gives the same result, because the app goes by the value, not the timing.