The joys of aircraft ownership are numerous: freedom, flexibility, adventure, spreadsheets…?
If I’m being honest, the amount of time dedicated to spreadsheets in the first month of aircraft ownership began to get in the way of the enjoyment. As a co-owner of Bonanza F33A, I found myself in charge of juggling payments of all sorts: hangar and aircraft supplies, chart subscriptions, insurance payments, pre-purchase inspection fees, monthly fixed costs, hourly operating costs, debts owed by each owner (and funds transferred), as well as managing flight reservations.
While entering a co-ownership offers many benefits, it also necessitates tracking a lot more data and moving parts than sole ownership. It was somewhere around the sixth Google Sheet that I was ready to find a better way.
Recognizing a Need
As it turns out, I am not the only one who recognized the inefficiencies of trying to separately manage all of the facets of aircraft ownership. In 2019, Eric Hill, director at the Center of Entrepreneurship at Mississippi State University, partnered with two other pilots on a Piper Cherokee. The task of managing the aircraft partnership fell to Eric, who quickly began a search for a software solution that could bring maintenance tracking, scheduling and billing all under one roof. His search came back with no suitable results.
At about the same time, a friend of Eric and fellow Mississippi State alumni, Tal Clark, purchased a 1972 Beechcraft F33A Bonanza (GREAT first airplane, by the way!). Feeling in over his head as a first-time aircraft owner, Tal and Eric began talking about the glaring need for a one-stop-shop aircraft ownership software solution. With backgrounds in entrepreneurship and technology, Eric and Tal were the right men for the job, and in September of 2019, Coflyt was launched.
I was recommended Coflyt by a friend who had managed his own aircraft partnership and decided to give it a shot. I signed up for the 30-day free trial to evaluate the software before purchasing a membership ($14 per month or $140 annually for a single-user/$36 per month or $360 for multi-user). I was impressed to find that a member of the Coflyt team could be scheduled for a virtual meeting free of charge to help new users get started. I signed up for a consultation and was scheduled a time with Pace Clark, son of co-founder Tal.
Pilot Peace of Mind
To start, owners build their aircraft into the Coflyt system beginning with general data such as the make and model, tail number and home airport. Once the basic aircraft profile is created, you can then enter more detailed maintenance tracking reminders for your specific airplane based on maintenance records and current aircraft time. Coflyt includes predetermined inspection categories to fill out such as VFR requirements, IFR requirements and engine. Under the VFR section, you are prompted to enter inspections such as the last annual, transponder and ELT inspections, as well as other miscellaneous data like insurance policy and registration renewal dates. IFR inspections will have fields for altimeter/pitot-static inspection, VOR check and GPS navigation database. The engine(s) section will populate fields for an oil change and a target major overhaul.
Some inspections will default to known timeframes for the designated inspection (i.e., annual will recur every 12 months), while others will allow you to define the time based on the date or flight time. Reminders can be added and customized for any inspection to provide an alert before coming due. Tracked items can also be designated as “grounded when overdue” to prevent scheduling when the aircraft is no longer airworthy due to an expired inspection.
With the predetermined inspections populated, users can further define and track anything to make the aircraft management experience easier – adding or editing data at any time. Coflyt has even made the daunting task of tracking ADs a simple process by interfacing directly with the FAA’s airworthiness directive database. It is as simple as pressing the “Import ADs” button. Using the aircraft’s registration data, the app will populate all possible ADs based on aircraft make and model. You can then select any that apply and enter the data for the last completion for future tracking.
In the Palm of Your Hand
With the maintenance trackers in place, your Coflyt aircraft dashboard is now set up for monitoring and alerting. From a single screen, you can quickly determine aircraft status, schedule availability, fuel status, as well as see any upcoming or overdue items you are tracking. You can also share your aircraft with your “ownership team,” which may include mechanics, other owners/pilots, insurance brokers, etc. It is a great tool to keep everyone up to date with what’s happening with the aircraft at any time.
If you operate in a co-ownership, partnership, or lease time to other pilots, Coflyt also offers scheduling and billing features. The schedule is intuitive to use and will allow all pilots to see when the aircraft is reserved for a flight or maintenance. Each user can elect to have email or text notifications sent to them when a new reservation is made, and the aircraft calendar can be synced with your personal calendar via one-way sync.
For billing, Coflyt has options to set up fixed-cost billing (monthly), as well as hourly. All transactions are saved and displayed with an account balance visible to the individual pilot or the account administrator at any time. Coflyt can even facilitate payments through their app using a service called “Stripe.” Note, Stripe charges a 2 percent fee per transaction. If not using Stripe, the administrator can manually edit account balances to reflect direct payments made by users outside of the app.
One negative I have personally run in to is that if you lease time to pilots at different rates than what you charge yourself, or other pilots pay different fixed costs, you cannot assign unique rates per pilot. In this case, the administrator would have to manually adjust these charges. It may be a rare scenario, but I think it would be a nice feature in the future.
Flying with Coflyt
Once the aircraft and account preferences are set up, owners can begin logging flights. As you would expect, logging your flights in the Coflyt app is straightforward. Origin and beginning hobbs/tach is preloaded from the previous flight. In addition to fields for landing airport and time, there are also fields for tracking fuel and oil either before or after the flight – plus any notes, pictures or documents that you might like to add. As flights are loaded, Coflyt will save all of the data for you or your ownership team to reference at any time in the future.
Any aircraft squawks that may be noted can now be captured, tracked and shared seamlessly between the ownership team. Coflyt smartly categorizes squawks using the Joint Aircraft System/Component (JSAC) code system. This method uses a number-based code for each aircraft component that follows along with the organization of aircraft maintenance manuals. The severity of the squawk can be tracked so that all parties know not only when the aircraft is downed but when to keep an eye out for intermittent issues that may warrant attention on future flights. Pictures can also be uploaded to the squawks page to keep a visual log.
Summary
I am about two months into using Coflyt, and as a new aircraft owner and administrator of our co-ownership, a tool like Coflyt is invaluable. I am confident my maintenance and other recurring trackable items will not go unnoticed and slip my consciousness. At the same time, I have access to scheduling and billing software that ensures all of my expenses are tracked and can be viewed by any member. Now, conversations with the other owners can revolve more around fun flights and trips as opposed to the aircraft’s status or money owed. This peace of mind allows us to spend less time with our heads in the spreadsheets and more time in the clouds.