Working on a new website - SocialAero

inktomi

inktomi

Filing Flight Plan
Joined
Sep 10, 2011
Messages
28
Location
Los Angeles, CA
Display Name
Display name:
Matt
I've been working on a labor of love - SocialAero - for a few months now. I think it's finally getting close to being ready.. so.. I was wondering if I might get some feedback on the site!

The idea is - it's hard to find people to fly with, and I can't afford to fly as much as I'd want to on my own. So - I post my trip ideas on the site, and hopefully link up with someone else willing to come along to split the cost up some.

The other useful thing is being able to list planes that are available to rent. This way, when I'm on vacation somewhere I can hit the site and see planes that I can rent near where I am.

I've tried to make the site useful to pilots by adding in the airport data from the FAA that I could find. I'm not the best at user experience though... hence my request for some feedback.

What do you think?
 
Haven't checked it out yet but hopefully you do not talk about money / splitting costs due to the FARs involved. I am not an expert but I know they can be interpreted different ways by different people.
 
The rules aren't that difficult... you're allowed to split costs evenly with your passengers. Maybe just post the direct language from the FAR. Pilots should know this stuff anyway. Its pretty simple for me as I pay a wet rental rate for the airplane.
 
Well, as long as Matthew doesn't try to arrange payments between the site users, I'm sure he'll be fine.

I've seen at least one other site like this if not several. The challenge here will be getting people to actually use this. If no one uses it...it won't be useful, and vice versa. Good luck.
 
dell30rb said:
The rules aren't that difficult... you're allowed to split costs evenly with your passengers. Maybe just post the direct language from the FAR. Pilots should know this stuff anyway. Its pretty simple for me as I pay a wet rental rate for the airplane.
Click to expand...

You must also share a common purpose for the flight. I can't say, "hey, I heard you want to go to Raleigh. It'll cost $500 to fly there. I need the hours so I'll fly you there for $250 and wait in the FBO until you're ready to go home."
 
jason said:
You must also share a common purpose for the flight. I can't say, "hey, I heard you want to go to Raleigh. It'll cost $500 to fly there. I need the hours so I'll fly you there for $250 and wait in the FBO until you're ready to go home."
Click to expand...

This is what I was meaning to say.
 
jason said:
You must also share a common purpose for the flight. I can't say, "hey, I heard you want to go to Raleigh. It'll cost $500 to fly there. I need the hours so I'll fly you there for $250 and wait in the FBO until you're ready to go home."
Click to expand...

There was an interesting debate about this one on the green board a year or so ago. It's a fine example of a thought law. One of the most ridiculous regulations in 14 CFR, IMO, but I digress.
 
Hmm.. I thought you could do whatever you wanted as a private pilot so long as the pilot paid his/her pro rata share.. ah.. the fun interpretations of the FARs! I'd think that just wanting to go to Raleigh would be a common purpose for the flight. I suspect most of the trips will be more of the "Going to Catalina Island for the day" type.

At this point the site is totally hands off for money. I'll leave it to the pilots and users to arrange all that unless I can somehow afford a lawyer who can work it all out for me so I can code it.

It wouldn't be hard to enforce the pro rata share though, if that would cover people. I'd hate for anyone to get in trouble on my account.
 
jason said:
You must also share a common purpose for the flight. I can't say, "hey, I heard you want to go to Raleigh. It'll cost $500 to fly there. I need the hours so I'll fly you there for $250 and wait in the FBO until you're ready to go home."
Click to expand...

That's why you just have to be careful how to word how you ask/offer.

"Hey, I heard you were going to Raleigh on the 25th, so am I. If you want to split costs..."
 
If it's as simple as hitting some language, I can make sure that happens in the email notification that you get when someone replies to your trip...
 
I guess my main concern was whether or not the site was easy to use and straightforward as to what it is.

Is it obvious what the site is about?
Is there a feature that you'd want that's missing?
Do you think people would actually use a site like this?

I'm the only developer on the site, so I can make it whatever would be useful.. right now I'm just scratching my own itches. Is there anything you'd want to see?

I had toyed with letting pilots use the site as a digital logbook, and doing fun things like suggesting an airport that's close to them that they hadn't visited yet, etc..
 
Now here I come with some misinformation :). I thought that if you put out ads on a site like this is was considered "advertising" and thus commercial?
 
I'd also considered doing the whole site as a flight club to get around that, but then I'd have to collect dues, etc. I think at that point, it'd be no different than pilots using their club's message boards to do the same?

By the way, don't even both searching "flight club rules".. the first rule of flight club is that google will correct it to fight club for you.
 
EdFred said:
That's why you just have to be careful how to word how you ask/offer.

"Hey, I heard you were going to Raleigh on the 25th, so am I. If you want to split costs..."
Click to expand...

Yup, I agree...
 
Joined, looks like a good idea
 
The last thing I'd want to have happen is a pilot get in trouble for using SocialAero.

Thank you for that link - very interesting. It states that the pilot would be OK if they had a common purpose for the flight, giving the example of transporting racers and a pilot who wanted to watch the race.

I wonder if being members of SocialAero is enough to establish the personal nature of the flight. The FAA seemed to say that if you knew the people you were flying with - and if you were going to the destination for the same reason - and if the pilot was the one who originally choose the destination - then all was well.

The idea for SocialAero is mostly just to find other pilots to fly with. Build time, etc. Not to really be a travel site.

Do you think that I'd be better off removing the "for the public" features of the site, so that it was more of a pilot - pilot connection site?
 
In my main FBO it's considered normal to "hold out to public". The management maintains a semi-official list of renters who like sharing. Then one pilot flies and pays for up leg, the other does the same for the down leg. Depending on the winds, it usually not ends in equal shares. There's also a list of people who are ok to help IR students as a safety pilot. I would be surprised if these practices were illegal, but with FAA one never knows. This works with telephone, without websites, BTW.
 
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