Frequently asked questions

SquawkFree is a digital backup and tracking companion for your aircraft logbooks. It gives owners, co-owners, flight schools, and clubs a mobile-friendly way to back up records, log flights, track maintenance, search and import FAA Airworthiness Directives, run pre-flight checklists, get real-time weather briefings, dispatch and bill flights, share aircraft with members, schedule reservations, and gain insights - all in one place.

SquawkFree is built for general aviation aircraft owners, co-owners, flight schools, clubs, and anyone who manages one or more aircraft. Whether you're a sole owner tracking your Cessna or a flight school managing a fleet of trainers with CFIs, dispatchers, and students, it helps you stay organized, keep secure digital backups, coordinate scheduling, and gain insights into your operation.

Yes. SquawkFree is a responsive web app that works on any device: phone, tablet, or desktop. There's nothing to install. Just log in from your browser in the cockpit, hangar, or mechanic's shop.

SquawkFree offers two plans: Premium ($4.99/month or $54.89/year - one month free) for individual owners and co-owners, and Flight School ($55/month or $605/year - one month free) for flight schools and clubs. Every new account starts with a 60-day free trial with full access at your chosen trial tier - no credit card required. When the trial ends, your account becomes read-only until you subscribe; your data stays safe.

When your 60-day free trial ends, your account becomes read-only. You can still view your existing records; you cannot add or edit until you subscribe to Premium or Flight School. Your data stays safe - subscribe anytime to restore full access, and you can export everything even while read-only.

Absolutely. You can cancel your subscription at any time from your account settings. Your access continues through the end of your current billing period, and your account then becomes read-only - your data stays put (see the next question).

Nothing disappears. Your account drops to read-only and we keep your data for at least two years after cancellation - come back any time in that window, resubscribe, and you're right back in your account exactly as you left it. After two years, we'll make every effort to contact you before deleting anything, but retention beyond that point isn't guaranteed. You can also export a complete copy of your records at any time, even while read-only.

There's no limit. You can add and manage as many aircraft as you need under a single account.

Yes, with the Flight Intelligence add-on ($3 per aircraft per month; included free during the 60-day Premium trial). It detects your flights from ADS-B data and pre-populates them - flights appear as pending entries you review, fill in tach and hobbs times, and accept. Without the add-on, manual flight logging is unlimited on every plan.

You can track any type of maintenance: annuals, 100-hour inspections, oil changes, component overhauls, repairs, and more. Each record supports parts tracking, mechanic information, and document attachments.

SquawkFree integrates directly with the FAA's Dynamic Regulatory System (DRS) to let you search for Airworthiness Directives by aircraft make, model, or keyword. You can import applicable ADs with one click, mark them as one-time or recurring, log compliance dates and methods, and set next-due dates or tach hours. The system automatically monitors compliance status and alerts you when action is needed.

Yes. For inspections and ADs that come due on tach hours, SquawkFree projects the calendar date you'll actually cross the threshold based on your recent flight activity and upcoming bookings - so "due in 38 hours" becomes "due around March 14." Projections appear on your dashboard next to each item with a confidence indicator, and they're estimates to help you plan, not a substitute for your own recordkeeping.

SquawkFree includes customizable pre-flight inspection checklists. You can create your own from scratch or start from a built-in template (like the Cessna 172S checklist with 50+ items organized by section). During an inspection, step through each item marking pass or fail, add notes, and save the completed inspection to a permanent history. It's a consistent, documented way to verify airworthiness before every flight.

A squawk is a discrepancy or issue discovered during flight or inspection. SquawkFree lets you log squawks, assign them a severity, and track them from discovery through resolution with a full history.

You can back up any aviation document: logbook pages, 8710 forms, STCs, invoices, inspection reports, and more. Documents are stored securely in the cloud and can be linked to specific aircraft or maintenance records for easy retrieval.

Yes. Aircraft owners can invite co-owners, instructors, renters, and club members by email. Each member gets granular permissions - you control exactly which tabs they can view or edit, such as flights, maintenance, scheduling, documents, and more.

SquawkFree includes a visual calendar where members can book aircraft in 15-minute intervals. You can view the schedule by day or week, click any open time slot to reserve it, and see who has the plane booked at a glance. Owners also get a master schedule view across all their aircraft.

No - SquawkFree is designed to work alongside your paper logbooks, not replace them. It gives you a searchable digital backup so you can instantly find records, track trends, and never worry about losing critical information to damage or misplacement.

The Flight School plan is designed for flight schools, clubs, and FBOs that need to manage multiple aircraft, CFIs, and members from a single organization. It includes everything in Premium plus organization management, weather briefings, dispatch and billing, CFI resource scheduling, multi-admin roles, and student rating tracking.

The Flight School plan includes a real-time weather briefing panel for your training area. Admins configure a home airport and any additional airports to monitor. All members then get live METARs (current conditions), TAFs (forecasts), PIREPs (pilot reports within a configurable radius), SIGMETs, AIRMETs, and winds aloft data - a complete pre-flight weather brief in one view.

Dispatchers create dispatch records from confirmed bookings, track tachometer and hobbs times, and log instruction hours (standard dual, advanced, and ground instruction). When the flight is complete, closing the dispatch automatically generates an itemized invoice based on configured aircraft rental rates and CFI instruction rates. Students can review, accept, and pay invoices online by card, and admins can track revenue, set payment terms, and manage billing from a dedicated dashboard.

Yes. Flight schools and clubs can bill every active member a flat monthly amount - you set the amount, description, and billing day, and SquawkFree generates an invoice into each member's account automatically each month. With auto-charge enabled, each member's saved card is charged for them, with automatic retries and email notifications if a payment fails. Individual members can be marked exempt.

CFIs can set their recurring weekly availability and one-off overrides. When a student or member books an aircraft, they can optionally select a CFI. SquawkFree performs dual conflict detection - checking both aircraft and CFI availability to prevent double-bookings.

Organizations support five roles: Owner (pays for the subscription and has full control), Admin (full access to manage members and aircraft), Dispatcher (manages scheduling and dispatch), CFI (manages their own schedule and flight logs), and Member (books aircraft and logs flights).

Yes. Every user can track their pilot certificates (student, private, instrument, commercial, ATP, CFI, etc.), medical class and expiry, flight review dates, and IPC currency. Admins can view member currency status to ensure compliance.

Admins can assign any member's aircraft to the organization or keep them as personal, unshared aircraft. Once assigned, all org members gain access based on their role. The organization dashboard shows fleet-wide stats, tach hours, flight counts, and member currency status at a glance.

Yes, and we strongly encourage you to reach out before you start - onboarding and data-transfer assistance is free for flight schools. Email support@squawkfree.com and we'll talk through your operation, help with onboarding, and handle the data transfer ourselves at no charge. Whatever format your current provider gives you - CSV exports, spreadsheets, PDFs, even paper records - we'll populate your members, aircraft, and past data into SquawkFree so switching platforms doesn't mean losing your history or re-typing it by hand. If you're a MyFBO school affected by their shutdown, we'd especially like to hear from you: reach out early and we'll make sure your scheduling, members, and history are moved over before your access ends.

No. Only the organization owner needs a Flight School subscription. All invited members - CFIs, dispatchers, students, and other members - get access through the organization at no additional cost.

The Flight School plan is $55/month or $605/year (one month free). It includes everything in Premium plus organization management, weather briefings, dispatch and billing, CFI scheduling, role-based access, and 25 GB of document storage. Every new account starts with a 60-day free trial - no credit card required; after the trial your account is read-only until you subscribe.

An optional ADS-B-powered add-on that enriches each detected flight with touch-and-go counts, taxi-out / airborne / taxi-in time splits, runway usage, pattern-work detection, an event timeline, and a 3D track replay. It works alongside the maintenance and logbook features by automatically importing flights from ADS-B data - no extra hardware needed.

$3 per aircraft per month, billed alongside your tier subscription. You enable or disable it per aircraft, so you only pay for the planes you actually want enriched. There are no annual contracts - adding or removing aircraft pro-rates the next invoice.

Yes. Flight Intelligence is an add-on to a Premium or Flight School plan, not a standalone product - and the 60-day trial counts. It is included free during the Premium trial: toggle it on for any aircraft to try it. On Flight School plans (including the trial) it bills from day one at $3 per aircraft per month, so you'll be asked to add a payment card when you enable it.

Flight Intelligence relies on a paid Flightradar24 data feed, and credit usage scales with the number of tracked aircraft. Charging per enabled aircraft lets us recover that cost honestly without raising prices for owners who don't want or need the feature.

Per our data provider's terms, raw GPS tracks are only retained for 30 days whether or not you keep the add-on. Derived data (touch-and-goes, taxi splits, runway/airport usage, event timeline) is permanently stored on your flight records and remains visible after you disable the add-on.

SquawkFree offers a hands-on digitization service where you upload photos of your paper logbook pages and our team transcribes every entry - flights, maintenance, inspections, AD compliance, and sign-offs - into structured digital records inside your SquawkFree account.

The initial import is a one-time fee of $299 per aircraft and covers up to 300 logbook pages - the typical airframe and engine history for most piston singles and twins. Larger or smaller histories can be quoted on request. If you want ongoing digitization for new entries added to your paper logbooks over time, an optional monthly subscription is available for $5.99/month per aircraft.

After purchasing the import for your aircraft, you create an upload job and photograph each logbook page using your phone or camera. For each page you select whether it's from the airframe or engine logbook and assign a page number. Once all pages are uploaded, you submit the job for processing. Our team reviews and transcribes the records, and you'll be notified when it's complete.

We accept JPEG, PNG, WebP, and HEIC/HEIF image files up to 25 MB each. PDFs are not supported - please photograph each page individually for the best results.

No. The digitization service works as a standalone purchase or as an add-on to any plan. Start a 60-day free trial, add your aircraft, and purchase the $299 import - no Premium or Flight School subscription required. Your digitized records stay viewable and exportable even if you never subscribe.

The optional monthly subscription is for ongoing digitization. If you continue making entries in your paper logbooks and want them added to your digital records periodically, the subscription lets you submit new pages at any time for our team to process.

Processing time depends on the number of pages and current queue volume. Most jobs are completed within 1–2 weeks. You can check the status of your job at any time from your aircraft's Digitize tab.

Yes. SquawkFree uses Firebase Authentication for secure sign-in, stores data in encrypted cloud databases, and serves all traffic over HTTPS. Your documents are stored in Google Cloud Storage with signed, time-limited access URLs.

Yes. From Settings → Data Export you can generate a downloadable ZIP bundle for a single aircraft, your entire account, or any organization you administer. Every export includes generic JSON and CSV files, and you can optionally add ForeFlight Logbook CSV, MyFlightbook CSV, and a printable PDF maintenance summary. Uploaded documents (logbook page photos, STCs, invoices, etc.) can be included in their original format. Exports run asynchronously - you'll see the job appear in the same panel and the download link is emailed and shown in-app when it's ready.