Frequently Asked Questions

SquawkFree is a digital backup and tracking companion for your aircraft logbooks. It gives GA 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 GA 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 tiers: Premium ($4.99/month or $54.89/year) 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 free 2-month trial with full access to all features — no credit card required.

When your 2-month free trial ends, you'll be prompted to choose a subscription plan to continue using premium features. Your data is never deleted — you can subscribe at any time to regain full access.

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 data remains safe.

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

Yes. SquawkFree can automatically detect your flights using ADS-B data and pre-populate them for you. Just enable the feature on your aircraft profile and flights will appear as pending entries that you can review, fill in tach and hobbs times, and accept — no manual route entry needed.

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.

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 and accept invoices, and admins can track revenue, set payment terms, and manage billing from a dedicated dashboard.

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.

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 free 2-month trial with full access.

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 $99 per aircraft. This covers the full transcription of all the logbook pages you upload. 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. You can create a free account, add your aircraft, and purchase the $99 import without a Premium or Flight School subscription.

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 a few business days. 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.

We're working on data export features. In the meantime, all your records and documents are accessible through the app at any time, and your uploaded documents remain in their original format.