Administrative documents are written for readers who were not present, and DA Form 7739 is no exception. Titled C-12 TAKEOFF AND LANDING DATA CARD, it is used to c-12 takeoff and landing data card — a transaction that means little in conversation and a great deal in a file. The published edition here carries the date 03/01/2016 and the status ACTIVE. Its 1 page(s) and roughly 77 fields are sized to what the record must prove years later, which is always more than the moment appears to need.
Behind any Army form sit two separate decisions. What the document asks is settled by T2COM, which maintains and revises it. Whether you raise it, and where it goes once signed, is settled by TC 3-04.12. That division is the reason a form can outlive several changes in the process it serves.
The heading blocks come first because the record is retrieved by them, not read into. Name as official records spell it, identification number, unit, date of preparation — those four are the index, and everything below them is content that only surfaces once the index has done its work. A form filed under a name written casually is not lost in principle, only in practice, which amounts to the same thing.
Much of the form's behaviour follows from its being a fixed page. Tab order was set at build time along the reading sequence, which is why tabbing catches boxes a pointer passes over. Exclusive groups release one choice when another is made because a record cannot carry two answers to a single question. Single-line fields refuse to wrap because every entry must print where the layout expects it — text beyond the width is lost at the margin, visible on screen to the end. That is what remarks areas and continuation sheets are for. Marking a field that does not apply matters for a related reason: emptiness is ambiguous, and a reviewer reading the file later cannot distinguish an omission from a decision.
Signing is the act that makes the document evidence, and until it happens the entries are only a proposal. Additional signatures — reviewer, approver, witness — each stand for a separate judgement, dated when applied so the record shows who accepted what and in what order. The common faults all damage that record in the same way: a blank mandatory field breaks the chain of required answers, swapped digits in an identification number detach the document from its subject, an inverted day and month misplaces it in time, and stale data from a reused copy states things nobody meant to state.
The Privacy Act statement is on the page because collecting personal information requires the collector to disclose the terms first — the authority relied on, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether an answer is required or may be withheld. That order is the point: the statement is read before the entries it governs, since consent given afterwards is not consent. Once completed, the copy is a personal record and carries the handling obligations that attach to one.
Download the form
The published formats — PDF — reflect the range of places a form gets filled in. Where there is a computer, the fillable pdf supplies live fields that keep entries positioned and readable. Where there is not, the printable pdf gives the identical page as flat artwork for pen entry. The distinction is one of setting rather than of authority; the page is the same document in both.
The choice of application decides whether your work survives. Browsers render pdfs as documents to be read; where a viewer shows fields without a mechanism to store them, typed text disappears when the tab closes, and nothing announces the loss. A full reader treats the file as a form and preserves entries on save.
Downloads are free and unregistered. The material was published for general use, and the files are passed on unaltered.
What the form asks for
- ContentArea1
- Page1
- Page2
- PageArea1
- R10
- R11
- R12
- R13
- R14
- R15
- R16
- R17
- R18
- R19
- R43
- R44
- R45
- R46
- R47
- R48
- R49
- R50
- R51
- R52
Disposition is prescribed, not chosen. TC 3-04.12 names the destination, whether that is a specific office, the unit administrative channel or the personal record, and the applicable records schedule governs how long it survives there. Both rules exist to keep the file consistent across offices with different habits. Take your copy before the document leaves, since it will not come back.
Series and number are how the DA series signals which documents belong together, and the grouping follows real process boundaries: a shared proponent or directive usually means a shared purpose. A form cited on the face of another is part of that same transaction, and continuation sheets, covers and transmittals complete it.
Revision follows the process, which is why editions appear without a fixed interval, and the printed date rather than any version number identifies them. Nothing on a stored copy signals that it has aged; the check is manual. Work already completed under a superseded edition stands as filed, because the record was made under those terms and is properly interpreted under them.
One boundary should be stated clearly. What is distributed here are copies of published Department of the Army forms; the site is independent, issues nothing of its own, and holds no position in the system it describes. Proponency, prescribing directives and retention schedules operate without reference to it. Consequently nothing here is legal advice and no assurance about acceptance is possible. Questions about a particular entry, a requirement or eligibility belong with T2COM or your servicing administrative office.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 7739?
- C-12 TAKEOFF AND LANDING DATA CARD
- Which edition is current?
- 03/01/2016
- Who is responsible for this form?
- T2COM
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- PDF, PDF