Maintenance and squawks

How maintenance tracking works

Read this first. It sets the vocabulary the rest of the section uses: an inspection is what an aircraft owes on a schedule, a squawk is a problem somebody found, and grounding is the only thing that actually stops a booking.

Use the Go / No-Go board

See every grounded aircraft and member in one place, open the record behind each item, and manage the currency rules your school tracks.

Add the standard airworthiness inspections

Maintenance, then Add inspections, then leave the mode on Standard set. All seven AVIATES items are ticked to start. Untick what does not apply, say when each was last done, and pick the tails.

Add your own inspection or a one-off reminder

Maintenance, then Add inspections. Choose Recurring for anything that repeats on hours or days, or One-off for a single date. Name it, set the interval and the warning lead, then pick the tails.

Set when an inspection was last done

When you attach an inspection to an aircraft, fill in When was it last done? with the date and the meter reading from the last time the work was actually performed. Leave it blank only if the work was just done.

Choose how much AerScheduler does about Airworthiness Directives

Four choices, and nothing is on by default. Do nothing about ADs, track them here yourself, have AerScheduler watch newly published ADs for ones naming your fleet, or say that applicability is tracked in another system such as ADlog or AVTRAK. Also explains what a serial number buys you and why we never decide that an AD does not apply.

Track Airworthiness Directives and keep the compliance record

Set an inspection's source to Airworthiness Directive and give it the AD number and revision date. Signing it off then keeps a permanent record of what was done, the meter readings and who certified it. The Compliance log is the history and the Airworthiness compliance report prints it. AerScheduler records the ADs you enter; it does not tell you which ADs apply to your aircraft.

Sign off a completed inspection

Click Sign off on the inspection row, set Completed on to the day the work actually finished, correct the meter reading, add notes, then Sign off. A repeating inspection immediately starts counting again from those numbers.

Change which aircraft an inspection covers, or stop tracking it

To add a tail from the console, open that aircraft and use Maintenance, then Add. To change the whole list or delete the rule, use Maintenance, then Set up. Deleting a rule stops tracking on every aircraft it covers.

Ground an aircraft, and return it to service

Open the aircraft and click Ground, or use the overflow menu on the Aircraft list. Type a reason. The aircraft cannot be booked for anything except maintenance until an admin returns it to service.

Report a squawk

On the console: Maintenance, then Log a squawk, or open the aircraft and use Squawks, then Log. On the iOS app: any aircraft page, or the prompt that opens by itself after you enter Hobbs and tach at close-out. Give it a title, a description, and a tail. Photos and PDFs are optional.

Aircraft papers (POH and weight and balance)

Put the current POH and weight and balance on the aircraft. Members who book it can open the ones marked for bookers. Staff can replace a stale file.

Resolve a squawk

Maintenance, then Squawks, then Open. Click Resolve on the card, set Completed to the day the work finished, write what was done, then Resolve squawk. Verify is a separate second stamp, on both surfaces, and a squawk can be resolved without ever being verified.

Add a note to a squawk

Open the squawk and use the Notes card: on the console, type in the box and click Add note; in the iOS app, tap Add Note. You can attach photos or a PDF, including a note that is only files. It records progress without closing the squawk, and notes cannot be edited or deleted afterwards.

Book an aircraft in for maintenance

Start a booking, choose the Maintenance type, pick the aircraft and the window, and save. Nobody is assigned to it, it blocks the whole window on the dispatch board, and it is never invoiced.

When AerScheduler grounds an aircraft by itself

An inspection carrying the Grounds the aircraft flag grounds its tail the moment it comes due, with the reason Maintenance. Signing the last one off puts the aircraft back on the line on its own.

Who can do what in maintenance

Admins, owners and technicians do the work. Dispatchers can read every board but cannot sign anything off. Instructors, students and renters cannot open the Maintenance board, but they can open a single squawk write-up and see open squawks on the aircraft page.

Who gets maintenance reminders and squawk alerts

Only admins and technicians ever receive maintenance reminders or squawk alerts. You can turn maintenance reminders off for yourself under Notifications. Squawk alerts cannot be turned off.

Why can't I book this aircraft?

If the booking is refused with "Resource is grounded", the aircraft has been taken off the line and only an admin can put it back. Open squawks are a warning and never block a booking.

Troubleshooting inspections and squawks

Most maintenance surprises come down to four things: hour-based reminders only fire at close-out, a countdown that started from the wrong point, a character limit the form does not show you, and a grounding reason that was typed by hand.