SquawkLog FAQs

1. Select “PURCHASE SQUAWKLOG”  from the menu
2. Select “Add to Cart” under the product description.  This will add SquawkLog to your shopping cart.
3. Select your shopping cart shown to the right of “SUPPORT” on the menu.
4. Enter your discount coupon (if available) and Click on  “Apply Coupon.” This will apply your discount at the bottom.
5. Click on “Proceed to Checkout”.  This will bring up the screen where you fill in your address, email and password.  After you purchase, your email will be your username.
6. Click on “Place Order.” You will then be sent over to PayPal to complete the purchase.  At this point you will receive an email with your login information for future use.
7. After completing the purchase on PayPal, you can select return to SquawkLog link to download or follow the instructions in an email sent to you.
8. Download and install SquawkLog onto your computer.

If you follow these steps, you’ll be able to purchase SquawkLog.

You can use the preset that is defined for setting up a GPS database update timer. If
you’d prefer, the follow steps will set up a tracking timer for your GPS database:
–  Go to the “Maint/Service” tab.
–   Right click on the grid and select “Create New Maintenance Item”.
–   Set the description to “GPS Update” and system to “Avionics”.
–   Make sure the “entered date” is set to today.
–   Set the due date to 28 days from today.
–   Set “then every” to 28 days.
–   Check “display on dashboard”
–  Click the Save button.

These steps can be used to set up any other item that needs to be regularly inspected or
updated.

Go to the aircraft tab, right click on the aircraft you want to add hours to, right click and
select “update hours”.

SquawkLog automatically creates tracking VHMs for aircraft Annuals/100 hour inspections and oil changes for each engine configured.
Optionally you can create maintenance reminders for:

Engine 1 & 2 hours for the following components/systems:
o Oil changes
o Left/Right Magnetos TTSN/SMOH
o Carburetor TTSN/SMOH
o Propeller TTSN/SMOH
o Propeller Blades 1-3 TTSN/SMOH

See question #4 for items not in the above list.

You can use the VHM Wizard found in the presets menu.  This Wizard quickly steps you through creating a VHM and maintenance item.  There are also many pre-defined VHM/Maintenance setups already defined.

If you don’t see what you need, follow the following steps to create a reminder:

–  Go to the VHM tab.
–  Right-click on the grid and select “Create New VHM”.
–  Type the name of the item you want to track into the description field.
–  In the “Create Maint Items for This Meter” section also type the name of the item you
want to track.
–  Fill in the “Initial Due” hours field with the number of hours you want to first do the
maintenance.
–  Fill in the “Then Every” hours field with the number of hours you want to do
subsequent maintenance.
–  Click the save button.

You can use the VHM Wizard found in the presets menu. This Wizard quickly steps you through creating a VHM and maintenance item. There are also many pre-defined VHM/Maintenance setups already defined.

Follow the following steps to manually create a maintenance reminder:

–  Go to the “Maint/Service” tab.
–  Right click on the grid and select “Create New Maintenance Item”.
–  Type the name of the item you want to track into the description field.
–  Make sure the “entered date” is set to today.
–  Set the due date to the day the maintenance is due.
–  Set “then every” to the interval that you want to repeat the item.
–  Optionally check “display on dashboard”.
–  Click the Save button.

Follow these steps to create a maintenance reminder:
–  Go to the VHM tab.
–  Right-click on the grid and select “Create New VHM”.
–  Type the name of the item you want to track into the description field.
–  In the “Create Maint Items For This Meter” section also type the name of the item
you want to track.
–  Fill in the “Initial Due” hours field with the number of hours you want to first do the
maintenance.
–  Fill in the “Then Every” hours field with the number of hours you want to do
subsequent maintenance.
–  Set the “Initial Due” date.
–  Set the “Then Every” days field to the interval you want to repeat the item.
–  Click the save button.

Go to the VHM tab, right click on the VHM you want to put on the dashboard, and select the position you want the VHM to appear.

Note: if the VHM’s “TBO Hours” field is not set the dashboard only displays the current VHM reading.  To display a percentage both the TBO hours and Hours field need to be set.

Go to the Aircraft tab and click the “Components” button. Put on component per line.  When SquawkLog updates ADs it searches the FAA database for each of these components and loads any ADs it finds into the AD tab.

Go to the “Maint/Service” tab, select the maintenance item in the grid, and click the “Display on Dashboard” checkbox.

A VHM (Virtual Hour Meter) tracks hours only. It usually updates when you add hours to the aircraft’s main hour meter (“tach” or “Hobbs” meter) though a VHM can be independent and updated manually.

A maintenance item can track calendar days by itself and you can simply set it to come due at a certain date or you can set it to come due in a certain number of days. You can also set it to come automatically come due again in a certain number of days in order to keep track of recurring maintenance tasks.

If you want a maintenance task to come due at a certain number of flight hours you need to “hook” that maintenance task to a VHM. Once that task is associated with a VHM you can also set it to come due at a certain number of hours. A task can come due at a certain date or a certain number of hours, whichever comes first.

A task can come due at a certain number of hours regardless of date and, once that maintenance task is completed, it can be set to automatically come due again in a certain number of hours.