Owning, renting or borrowing an airplane can be complex – from both sides of the relationship – but help is available. Canada-based Buddypilots Aviation has recently launched buddypilots.com to serve everyone from FBOs and flight schools to partnerships, sole owner-operators and even non-owner pilots and mechanics.
I recently met with Thibaut Souyris, Buddypilots’ VP of Business Development for a walk-through.
From the pilot perspective, after setting up an account that includes pilot qualifications, flight time, home-base, aircraft and the like, the Dashboard comes to life once logged in. Weather, recent flight time, qualification status, scheduling, recent flights, invoices and more are just a click away.
A complimentary iPhone app (other platforms coming soon), it will track flight milestones such as engine start, takeoff, landing and engine stop. The data will upload when a connection is available and populate your logbook for fine tuning and approval.
Buddypilots has been three years in the making and is aimed at flight schools and FBOs with five to 25 aircraft.
For businesses pricing is based on the number of aircraft with an unlimited number users able to access Buddypilots.
The feature list is lengthy and growing: Scheduler, pilot logbook, aircraft profile, flight management, pre-flight assistance, student pilot oversight and coordination, billing, maintenance management and more.
Missing from the feature set is true flight planning, but Thibaut (pronounced Tee-bow) assures me isn’t in their plans.
“Buddy pilots is designed for before and after a flight. We hope to partner with several of the flight planning tools like ForeFlight, FlyQ and WingX.”
Regardless of the product line that would fit you best, a 30-day free trial is available so you can kick the proverbial tires. UPDATE: Buddypilots is offering General Aviation News readers a 30% discount for 3-months – after the 30-day free trial. Enter promo code GANEWS when you sign up.
Hello JG,
We understand your comment and will work on finding a good way to address this issue. In the meantime, the 30 day free trial is intended to allow everyone to check if they can find value in any of our plans.
Thank you for your feedback, it is really valuable to us.
Couldn’t agree more with the previous comment. As a gainfully employed, single-plane owning, IFR-rated pilot, I would love to have this product. It’s everything I and my two partners in the plane would love to have. But when you look at the pricing? Not a chance. Waaaay to expensive for this purpose.
Buddypilots, please consider halving the single plane price (or more). This would be a slam dunk at a much lower price point. Until then it’s a pass from this aviator.
Hello,
We are very happy to see that our platform answers a real need for you and your partners.
Did you check the Partnership section in the plans and pricing, we have accounts starting at $24.57 per month if you use the General Aviation coupon code (GANEWS) and choose an annual billing (we add another 10% discount with annual billing).
You can join our team at [email protected] if you have any question.
Thank you.
Sounded like a great program to have until I hit the pricing. For a retired, VFR GA pilot who flies only around 50 hours a year due to the expense and diminishing VFRWx, I can’t justify the $79 a month cost. Heck, it is half my hangar rent. Wish you the best of luck with your program, but sorry not for me.
Hello J.G.
Thank you for your comment. We totally understand your point, however, the account you saw at $79 is the FBO account. As a pilot, you have an account at $19 per month with everything you need to focus on flying instead of filling in paperwork.
Here is the link to this plan: https://www.buddypilots.com/plans.html?account_type=pilots
Have a great day!
As a follow-up to my comment about being overpriced and being corrected that I read the pricing for an FBO, the single pilot price of $19/mo is certainly better. However, it does total out to $228 a year which is more than most VFR pilot GPS flight software. I wager that in the flying vs. expense position many pilots find themselves in, if it comes down to a choice between the two programs, the flight planning/moving map one will be the choice every time. But, I still applaud your effort in this arena.
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