Private installation
Each school runs its own copy of FlightDesk with its own database — nothing is shared with other schools.
Features
Everything your flight line needs. Nothing it doesn’t.
Scheduling, dispatch, billing, maintenance, members and your website — designed together, so information is typed once and used everywhere.
Scheduling
A schedule built for airplanes, instructors and rooms
The split view stacks aircraft, instructors and rooms on one timeline, so a lesson shows up on the airplane, the instructor and the briefing room at once.
- Split, week, month and list views — 1, 3 or 7 days
- Drag to create, move and resize; conflicts are blocked
- Sunrise, sunset and civil twilight shaded on the timeline
- Weekly repeating bookings for regular students
- Your own row order, or the school’s default
- Private calendar feeds for Google, Apple and Outlook
Dispatch
Pre-flight checks that never get skipped
Each dispatch shows pass, warn or fail for twelve checks. Airworthiness problems always stop the flight; currency and balance checks follow the rules you set.
- Medical, flight review and 90-day solo endorsement (14 CFR 61.87(n))
- Checkouts by aircraft, renter insurance and membership status
- Annual, 100-hour, ELT, pitot-static and your own inspections
- Grounding squawks, open maintenance and aircraft still out
- Account balance against a credit limit
- Overrides need permission and a reason — and are recorded
Check-in & billing
Check-in that bills itself
Pilots enter the Hobbs and tach in; FlightDesk works out the time, prices it at the rate locked in at dispatch and posts the charges.
- Hobbs or tach billing, two tachs and one or two Hobbs on twins
- Early check-ins shorten the booking so the aircraft frees up
- Instruction from flight time, plus ground time
- Monthly dues by group, payments, credits and adjustments
- Staff can void and correct a check-in with a full audit trail
Maintenance
Squawks and inspections that ground aircraft for you
Anyone can report a squawk from the schedule, the aircraft page or check-in. Mechanics verify it, defer it or ground the aircraft — and dispatch follows.
- Status workflow: new, verified, repair later, grounded, resolved
- Inspections by calendar date, tach time, or both
- Maintenance blocks sit over bookings and list the flights they affect
- Maintenance check-in with new times, oil and squawk updates
- Email alerts when an aircraft is grounded
Members
Groups and permissions that fit your school
Make the groups you actually have — Student Pilots, Renters, Club Members, Instructors, Office Staff, Mechanics — and tick what each one may do.
- 29 permissions, from “book for themselves” to “override dispatch checks”
- People can belong to several groups; dues rules handle the overlap
- Membership requests from your website, with approval
- Medical, flight review, insurance and checkouts on every profile
- Instructors record solo endorsements and flight reviews
Website
Your school’s website, built in
Your public website lives at your school’s address and is edited from FlightDesk. Your fleet block updates itself when aircraft come and go.
- Pages from blocks: hero, pricing, live fleet, FAQ, team, gallery
- Discovery-flight and contact forms with spam protection
- Messages arrive in an inbox inside FlightDesk
- Your colours, logo, pictures and contact details
Lobby TV
A flight line board for the lobby
Put today’s schedule, the flight line or a dashboard with the METAR on any screen. A read-only display link means no one has to stay signed in on the lobby PC.
- Dashboard, flight line and schedule screens
- Live METAR, sunrise and sunset
- First names and last initials only
- Your announcement banner on every screen
Leaseback owners
Give aircraft owners their own view
Add an owner to any aircraft. They keep a normal member account, plus a monthly statement for their airplane.
- Flights, hours and rental revenue by month, with a 12-month trend
- CSV statements for their accountant
- Owners can update their aircraft’s details and book maintenance
- They can’t delete aircraft or see anyone else’s numbers
On the ramp
Everything works from a phone
Pilots book, dispatch and check in from the ramp. Members see their bookings, balance and currency at a glance.
- Phone-friendly schedule, dispatch and check-in
- My flights page with balance and currency
- Dark mode for night ops
- Nothing to install — any modern browser
Security
Your school’s data, locked down
Member records, medical dates and account balances deserve real protection. Here’s what FlightDesk does by default.
Strong password storage
Passwords are hashed with Argon2id plus a secret pepper, and common passwords are refused.
Brute-force protection
Repeated wrong passwords are slowed down per network and per account — without locking real members out.
Sessions that expire
Idle sessions sign out automatically, and changing a password signs out every other device.
Least privilege
Every action is checked on the server. Staff can’t manage anyone with more access than they have.
Audit trail
Dispatch overrides, meter gaps, voided check-ins and setting changes are logged with who and when.
Try every feature in the live demo
Pick a role — school owner, instructor, student or mechanic — and explore a sample flight school.