Walkaround

Technology · On the aircraft

Electronic technical records

Electronic tech logs, paperless records, digital signatures

in service, adoption accelerating 2 min read · updated 15 October 2026 · checked 15 October 2026

Two independent sources on every claim.

Why it is here

It changes how a defect is raised, deferred and cleared, and what counts as a legal record.

At a glance

What it is

A technical log is the aircraft's legal record of defects, deferrals, rectifications and certificate of release to service. An electronic tech log replaces the paper book in the flight deck with a tablet application that writes to the maintenance system directly.

In plain terms

Today a pilot writes a defect in a book, the book travels, a technician reads the handwriting, and someone types it into a computer later. An electronic log removes the handwriting and the retyping, because the entry is made once and is already in the system.

The regulatory question was never whether this is more convenient. It was whether an electronic entry can be the legal record. That needed the system to prove data integrity, attribute every entry to an identified person, and retain records for the required period in a form an inspector can audit.

Why it matters on the line

On the line

The gain that matters is not speed, it is transcription. An error rate of 30 to 50 percent on manual entries is not a statement about anyone's handwriting, it is a statement about copying data between systems. Removing the copy removes that class of error. The cost is that an unserviceable tablet becomes an airworthiness issue rather than an inconvenience, so the procedures for a failed device, and the fallback to paper, are the part of the implementation worth reading carefully rather than skimming.

Records quality is also the constraint that shows up most often on this site. Ageing fleets flown past their planned retirement, converted freighters that have changed operators several times, out of production types supported by used serviceable material: in every one of those cases, the obstacle is frequently the paperwork rather than the work. A record set that is searchable and attributable is worth more on those fleets than on a new one.

SunExpress expects its paperless project to remove around one million paper forms a year, which is a reasonable measure of how much handling a large fleet's records involve.

Where to read more

The records problem recurs on the 767, the CRJ family and the 737 NG, all of which are supported in part by used serviceable material.

Sources