Carr Engineering, Inc.

This section covers how to view and manage the flight schedule in SkyManager.

Your organization's SkyManager site includes an easy-to-use daily flight and instructor schedule, from which you can view the current, past or future schedule, add and cancel reservations and check flights in and out. This article covers the following topics:

• Viewing the Schedule
• Adding a Reservation
• Cancelling a Flight
• Checking Reservations In and Out

Viewing the Schedule

To access the schedule, simply click the Online Schedule link in the Navigation Bar at the top of the Home Page (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Access the flight schedule from the Navigation Bar.

You should now see the online schedule (Figure 2). The schedule is broken into two sections, the top (1) listing available aircraft and the bottom (2) listing available instructors. Reservations may include an aircraft, an instructor or both. In addition, you can hover your mouse cursor over any aircraft to view information about it (e.g., Hobbs, Tach, TTAF, etc.) based on the readings entered from the most recently checked in flight for that aircraft.

Figure 2. The schedule separates flight and instructor reservations.

You can change the day you're viewing reservations for by selecting a different day from the drop-down at the top of the schedule or by clicking the back and forward Day/Week links at the bottom-left and bottom-right of the schedule. If you have the necessary permissions, you can also show cancelled reservations in the schedule by checking the Show Cancelled checkbox at the bottom of the schedule. Then, you can hover your cursor over any cancelled reservation in the calendar to view details, such as the reason for cancellation.

You can also customize your view of the schedule by clicking on the Customize View link in the upper-right corner of the page. The Edit Custom View pop-up window allows you to narrow your view of the schedule to show only certain aircraft and/or instructors (Figure 3). After customizing your aircraft/instructor selections, click the Save Custom View button.

Figure 3. Customize your view of the schedule.

Customizing your view is a great way to show only the reservations that apply to yourself, which is particularly useful when viewing the schedule on a smartphone or tablet. As changes occur, you can always go back and customize your view to add or remove instructors and aircraft.

Adding a Reservation  

You can add a reservation to the schedule for either an aircraft or instructor (or both). To schedule a flight, simply click the Add Reservation button in the bottom-right corner of the page or the Add Reservation link in the top-right. You may also simply double-click any open point on the schedule to quickly add a reservation at that time. No matter how you go about it, the Reservation window will appear (Figure 4).

Figure 4. You can add a reservation to the schedule.

Complete each of the fields in the page:

• Member Name: The member for which the reservation is being made. This field defaults to the user currently logged in and creating reservation.
• Aircraft: The aircraft being reserved. Choose aircraft by tail number or group type, which is useful when your organization flies multiple aircraft of the same type. Choosing the group rather than a specific aircraft allows the system to reschedule the reservation to use another aircraft in the same group automatically if one is available if the first aircraft is down for maintenance.
• Instructor: The instructor for the flight, if applicable. If you choose an Instructor, you will be prompted to enter both pre- and post-flight additional time, if applicable.
• Time Span: The date and times that you are reserving for your flight.
• Priority: The priority level of the reservation. This may include “Normal Reservation” for normal operation, as well as special priorities such as “Administrative Reservation,” “Checkride” and “Maintenance.” By default, Maintenance Reservations are the highest priority and allow you to down the aircraft. Checkboxes also appear to allow the user to bypass any member or instructor scheduling conflicts to increase schedulability of aircraft if a lesson or time conflict can be resolved prior to the flight.
• Syllabus: If you are a student enrolled in a syllabus, the syllabus type and lesson drop-down menu will appear. If necessary, choose the type and lesson you are working on in this flight. 
• Flight Rules: The flight rules that apply to the reservation (generally VFR or IFR).
• Comments: Comments that the student, instructor or dispatcher wish to add. These will appear on the dispatch ticket if printed.

When finished, click the Add Reservation button. If there is a conflict or issue, the system will prompt you with a reason to correct.

Your flight will now appear on the schedule, and any associated instructor time will also appear (Figure 5).

Figure 5. Your reservation will appear in the schedule.

In the screenshot above, you will see that instructor J. Smith and aircraft PA-44 N775TX are now reserved. The reservation also shows the symbol for a two-person (dual) flight. To see additional information about the reservation, hover over the reservation with your cursor.

A downed aircraft will appear in red. Although it is marked as “down,” the aircraft is still schedulable in the system for later in the day or week. This is useful for a downed aircraft that will only be down for a short time.

Below the schedule, the user currently logged in will see a chronological list of his or her future reservations (Figure 6). Click the green ICAL button to sync your SkyManager reservations with your Outlook calendar, or right-click the ICAL button and copy the link to add it into another electronic calendar such as Google Calendars. Your personal calendar will then pull a feed showing your upcoming Personal Reservations.

Figure 6. The user's reservations will appear below the schedule when logged in.

Cancelling a Flight

Only a pilot, instructor or administrator is able to cancel a reservation, unless special privileges have been assigned to another member or user tag to which the member belongs.

To cancel a reservation, click on the reservation name in the reservation box to open the Reservation window. In the Reservation window, click on the Remove button. This will open the Cancellation window (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Only those with cancellation access may cancel a flight.

Use the drop-down menu to select a reason for cancelling the flight. For example, choose "MX - Maintenance" if the flight is cancelled due to maintenance issues. If necessary, enter comments regarding your selection (e.g., "Plane won't start.").

Administrators and those with the necessary access via securities/tag permissions can remove a flight completely without a reason. 

Once you have entered your cancellation reason and details, click the Cancel Reservation button. The reservation will disappear from the schedule and free the aircraft and instructor time, if any. Any alternate reservation waiting in line will be added to the schedule automatically. 

Note that removing a reservation does not remove associated invoice items and charges, Hobbs, Tach, TTAF, etc. recorded from that flight. 

Checking Reservations In and Out

To dispatch (check out) any scheduled flight, right-click on the reservation and select Check Out from the pop-up menu (Figure 8).

Figure 8. Right-click a reservation to dispatch.

The dispatch screen will appear (Figure 9). It will state either “Dispatch Failed” or “Dispatch Successful” at the top.

Figure 9. Dispatch for the selected flight failed.

There are three main sections that SkyManager checks in order to dispatch a flight. First, SkyManager checks any and all criteria that your organization uses here to determine if the Pilot can be dispatched on this flight. Next, SkyManager will perform similar checks on any Instructor listed for the flight. Finally, SkyManager will perform an Aircraft check. 

Note that if the Pilot passes but the Instructor fails (or vice-versa), SkyManager considers the passing person to be Pilot in Command (PIC) and dispatch will be successful at this stage. The above checks are configurable to a degree for maintenance discrepancies, Airworthiness Directives, 50 Hour, 100 Hour and more.  

Users with sufficient permissions may override a dispatch failure. In the upper-left corner of the screen, click the Override Checkout button to override check failures and dispatch the flight anyway. For example, one may do this when a maintenance discrepancy has been resolved but wasn’t entered yet into SkyManager.

Once a flight is dispatched successfully (or overridden by an administrator), you will receive a message that dispatch was successful. You will now be able to print a dispatch ticket (formatted for a knee board), which includes all flight data, current METAR, optional syllabus info and more. To print, right-click on the dispatched flight in the schedule and select the Print option. This will download a PDF file containing the dispatch ticket (Figure 10). Any Syllabus information would appear on the right side, in the additional white space.

Figure 10. You can print a dispatch ticket after dispatching the flight.

The student and/or instructor can now walk out to the aircraft and proceed with the flight.

Once the flight is complete, you will need to check the aircraft back in. To check in a flight, right-click the reservation in the schedule and select Check In. The Check In screen will appear (Figure 11).

Occasionally, a pilot may forget to check a flight in. The Rental History report in the Report Gallery is useful for finding any potential gaps, showing unusually long check-out times in bold. This helps you maintain accountability with the pilots in your organization.

Figure 11. Check in and enter details for your flight once it's complete.

Flights returning early will have their times adjusted appropriately for both aircraft and instructor. 

If you need to report a discrepancy, click the Report Discrepancy button before checking in the aircraft. When ready to check in a flight, SkyManager asks first for the aircraft data. Hobbs Out time will be prepopulated from the previous flight record. Add the data as necessary and proceed to the next area. Only the data on the top half of the screen is required for check-in. When finished, click on the Complete Check In button highlighted in Figure 11. If the flight involved an instructor, be sure to enter the amount of instructor time when checking in. If you would like to complete an electronic flight log for the flight, do so using the Pilot Flight Log section and, if an instructor was involved with the flight, the Instructor Flight Log section. 

Once the flight is checked in, you will see the invoice for the flight has been added to the user's account statement (Figure 12). The receipt records the Plane Rental, fuel charge if any, Flight Instructor and charge if any, and the total. The far right column shows the user's account balance in a manner similar to a check register.

If your organization uses QuickBooks, all invoices will be held in a queue until the next synchronization.

Figure 12. An invoice is generated for each flight.

Here, any other point-of-sale items can also be listed (e.g., a sectional chart) by clicking the add link next to the summary line with date and time.

Organizations using QuickBooks™ software may turn this feature off to save all invoices for batch processing. Users can still see their balances elsewhere, but the SkyManager balance sheet won’t update until QuickBooks is synchronized again.