Scheduling
A schedule that cannot double-book, and will not let anyone book a grounded aeroplane
Every scheduler shows a calendar. The interesting part is what happens when two people tap the same slot at the same moment, or when the aeroplane they are booking is sitting unairworthy with a cracked exhaust.
Overlaps are refused by the database
Two members on two phones can start the same booking in the same second. A check in the form does not stop that, because both forms see a free slot before either saves. FlightWay puts an exclusion constraint on the reservation table itself, so the second write is rejected by Postgres, not by a race that the code hopes to win.
It is a small thing until it happens on a Saturday morning to two members who both drove to the field.
The aircraft has to be fit to fly
A squawk marked critical sets the aircraft unairworthy. That is not a label on a page: it pulls the aeroplane out of the booking form and blocks check-out until the squawk is cleared with a corrective action recorded against it. The schedule and the maintenance state are the same fact, so they cannot disagree.
Maintenance is booked on the same calendar. An annual is a reservation like any other, which means nobody books over the week the aeroplane is in the shop and the shop’s week shows up in the same place members already look.
Views for the two ways people actually look at a schedule
- Month, for "when could I get the 172 for a weekend".
- Week and day, for a club flying enough that a month grid stops being readable.
- List, for "what is actually coming up", which is the question most members are really asking.
Club rules, enforced quietly
Rules that exist to stop one member sitting on the good aeroplane every weekend work better when the software applies them and nobody has to be the person who says no.
Reminders, and the cancellation nobody made
The booking that hurts a club is the one nobody cancels. FlightWay reminds the member before the slot and puts a cancel link in the message that works without signing in, because the whole point is to make releasing the aeroplane easier than forgetting about it.
Club events, not just aircraft
Work days, meetings, fly-outs and training nights live on the same calendar with volunteer sign-ups, so the wash day and the annual meeting are not a separate email thread that half the club misses.
Last updated 18 August 2026.