Moving over from AirData

If your fleet has been logging flights in AirData, you can bring its history into RotorLab without retyping it. RotorLab does not connect to your AirData account or pull anything from it. You move two things yourself: the fleet (your aircraft, the parts that carry hours, and your crew), which you bring in from a spreadsheet, and the flight history, which you bring in as the log files you export or already hold.

This page takes you through it in order: the fleet first, then the flight logs, then what to check. Each log is read in the background, so the flight history keeps reading after you leave the page.

What you bring over#

Anything else AirData holds, such as reports, maintenance entries or equipment lists, is not read by RotorLab. Enter it in RotorLab's own records, or leave it in AirData as your archive.

Step 1: bring in the aircraft and crew#

1. Open Aircraft, open the chevron beside Register an aircraft, and choose Import from a spreadsheet. The sheet that opens is titled Import from CSV.
2. Under What, pick Aircraft, download the template and fill it from your own spreadsheet: name (required), registration, serial, model, airframe_type, status and notes. An airframe_type has to be one of the airframe types the Builder knows; any other value is refused on its row.
3. Choose the file, or paste rows straight from your spreadsheet, and press Preview. Every row shows what importing will do: create, skip (with the reason), or refused (with the reason and the line number). Nothing is written until you press Import.
4. Repeat with Components (parts with hours) for parts that carry hours or cycles. hours_to_date and cycles_to_date bank the life a part flew before RotorLab, so its limits count down from the truth rather than from zero. Name the aircraft in the aircraft column.
5. Repeat with People (crew invites) to invite your crew. Each person is sent the standard invitation email, and stays Invited until they accept.

Existing records always win. An aircraft that matches by serial or name is skipped rather than overwritten, so importing the same file twice is safe. Numbers are read strictly: a point is the decimal separator, with no thousands separator. If your spreadsheet writes a decimal comma, tick This file uses a decimal comma. See Importing an existing fleet for the whole of it.

Bring the aircraft in first, so they exist when you assign the flight history to them in step 3.

Step 2: get your flight logs out of AirData#

RotorLab reads AirData's CSV export of a flight log. The reader recognizes the file by its columns, reads the units from the column headers (for example altitude(feet) against altitude(m)), and dates the flight from the file's UTC date and time column when the records carry no GPS clock of their own. See Supported log formats.

If you still hold the original log files your aircraft wrote, bring those as well: RotorLab reads ArduPilot, PX4, Betaflight and INAV, DJI, Parrot and GUTMA logs. A current DJI flight record is encrypted by DJI, and reading one is off until an organization admin switches it on under Organization, then Data and privacy, then Outside services; see Outside services. An AirData CSV needs no switch.

Step 3: import the flight history#

1. Open File Flights, open More, and press Import flight history.
2. Choose a zip of logs (up to 512 MB), a folder, or many files. One import takes up to 5,000 logs. Inside a zip, nested archives, files that are not flight logs and unsafe paths are refused.
3. Each log is checked and read in the background, so you can leave the page and come back. The import shows how many logs are ready, need attention, are duplicates or could not be read. If the connection drops, choose the same files again: the import skips the logs it already has.
4. Assign the aircraft, pilot, job or battery pack. Assignment rules match the aircraft or pilot a log names and are applied before anyone looks; fix one row and Remember keeps that choice for the rest of the import and future imports. When you choose a folder, Folders are pilots reads each top folder's name as the pilot's name.
5. Press File N ready flights to file them in the background.

Imported logs wait up to 30 days for you to file them. Imported flights count for currency, hours, battery cycles and maintenance like any other flight, but they are filed as history: no notice or email goes out for each one. You get one notice when the import has been read and one when it is filed. A crash signature in an old log, a lapse the history shows or maintenance work it raised is listed under To review from this history. See Importing flight history.

What to check afterward#

• Hours and flight counts. Open an aircraft and compare its hours and flight count with what AirData showed. The log each flight was read from is kept with it.
• Duplicates. The same file, or the same recording in another file, is flagged as already filed rather than counted twice. See File Flights.
• The aircraft on each flight. An AirData CSV names no aircraft maker, so check that each imported flight sits on the aircraft you meant, and use an assignment rule with Remember to fix a whole group at once.
• Currency and maintenance. Hours and cycles from imported flights count toward currency, component life and maintenance due dates. Open Crew and Maintenance and read what now needs attention.

Related#

• Importing an existing fleet
• File Flights
• Supported log formats
• Setup list