Flight School Software

[Tiger815]

What software programs are you guys using at your flight school?

I'm now managing the school as well as trying to flight instruct full time and would like an integrated system that did billing and tracked aircraft usage etc.

I'm semi computer literate and could probably build a home grown solution with enough time and effort, but why re-invent the wheel. I have to believe someone has already done the job. Are there any good programs out there we could go buy to help improve productivity and aircraft usage?

[jrh]

My college flight center uses FBO Manager. I don't usually work the front desk, so I don't know exactly what its capabilities are, but I know they use it to dispatch aircraft, bill students, pay flight instructors, sell merchandise (charts, books, headsets, that sort of thing), and just about everything else we do. It's been in use for several years, so they must be reasonably happy with it. I believe it has the capabilities to track aircraft usage, but we just input updated tach times into an Excel spreadsheet in order to track oil changes, 100 hour inspections, hours flown per year, etc.

My only complaint is that it doesn't seem very user friendly for fixing mistakes. There has been more than one occasion where I'll check-in a dispatched aircraft after a flight and input a number wrong. When I ask the usual front desk worker how to fix it, she'll say...oh...let me sit down and do that. Then she'll sit down and spend five minutes clicking through a bunch of screens doing things that I completely don't understand. But obviously she does, so it works.

Here's the web site:

http://www.cornerstonelogic.com/fbo.htm

[Tiger815]

Thanks that sounds a lot like what we need.

If anyone else's school is using this or something similar I'd appreciate if you could tell me at least the product name so I can do some comparison shopping.

[mtsu_av8er]

We use MyFBO - it's pretty neat!