Automatic translation from German. View original text
Pilot Community App: Pilot network in the flight app
In short: A Pilot Community App is a social network for pilots with a profile, feed, and messages. Most offerings in this field are standalone communities alongside your navigation program, not within it. EuroPilot Connect builds the network into the same app as planning and the aeronautical chart. The practical difference: you share your planned route as a route with legs and figures, not as a screenshot.
Anyone looking for a Pilot Community App will find a surprisingly crowded field in Germany. There are well-made, sometimes award-winning offerings, and most of them do their job well. What hardly anyone mentions in the search results is the question behind it: Why is the pilot network almost always a different app than the one you fly with?
This article answers that. It first shows what the landscape looks like, then how the network in EuroPilot Connect specifically works, and finally, what it cannot yet do. I built the app myself, so I am not neutral. That's why the section on the gaps is included below, unedited.
EuroPilot Connect originated from the Sport- und Segelfliegerclub Bad Waldsee-Reute , based at EDMZ, 660 meters of grass, runway 14/32, not on the drawing board of a software company. Many in the team hold a pilot's license, and flights and tests are conducted on Bristell LSA, Comco Ikarus C42 C, and Robin DR400, i.e., across ultralight and Echo class.
Original view from EuroPilot Connect on iPad. Discover all 14 app views →
What is a Pilot Community App?
A Pilot Community App is an app where pilots maintain their own profile, follow each other, share flights and pictures, and communicate with each other. The difference from Instagram or WhatsApp is not in the technology, but in the context: the profile knows flight hours, license types, and ratings, the post knows airfields, and the people on the other side understand why an approach to a 660-meter grass strip is worth a story.
Practically, pilots use such an app for four things: showing flights and photos, asking questions about unfamiliar airfields, finding co-pilots and club members, and arranging events like fly-ins.
Why is the community usually in a second app?
Because most community offerings are deliberately not navigation or planning programs. This is not my assumption; the providers themselves state this.
RunwayMap for example, explicitly states on its own website that the app is not a flight planning tool and refers to established planning software for navigation. According to the provider, it lists over 20,000 airfields, plus pilot reports, approach videos, webcams, and weather, and offers an export of the flight destination to Garmin Pilot or SkyDemon. This is a clear, honest division of labor, and for many pilots, it works well.
In addition, there are other German-language offerings, each with its own focus. The short descriptions come from the respective linked source, and for FollowMe, from an article by flugrevue:
| Offering | Positioning according to linked source |
|---|---|
| RunwayMap | Worldwide pilot community centered around airfields, explicitly not a planning tool |
| Pilot Social | Aviation community, logbook, and airfields |
| Pilotenwelt | Meeting point for UL, LAPL, and PPL pilots with member map and events |
| FollowMe | Network for professional pilots and flight attendants centered around rosters |
I strongly recommend that you look at the pages yourself instead of trusting my summary. Scope of services and prices change, and I am a competitor here, not a referee.
However, the consequence of this division of labor is often the same, no matter how good the individual app is: your route is created in program A, and the flight is recounted in program B. And if B cannot display the route as a route, a screenshot ends up in the feed. We have counted how many apps come together in this division in a separate article: How many apps do you really need for a VFR flight?
What does the pilot network in EuroPilot Connect look like?
It is not an attached area, but lies on the same data as planning, aeronautical chart, and airfield information. Three modules support it.
The Profile
Your profile lists flight hours separately, i.e., total hours as well as SEP, MEP, IR, and gliding, plus license types such as PPL, LAPL, CPL, or ATPL, ratings such as SEP, MEP, IR, or night, your home airfield as an ICAO identifier, country and region, and your pilot type. You control what appears on your profile section by section: posts, updates, flight reports, photos, questions, aircraft, and flight hours each have their own switch. The entire profile can also be set to private.
Deliberately not not stored are license number, issuing authority, and phone number. These three fields once existed, and we removed them from the database because a social network does not need them. A license number is useless for the community and a problem in case of damage.
You can follow other pilots. If a profile is set to private, following automatically becomes a request that the other person can accept or reject. You can find people by name and pilot type using the pilot search.
The Feed
The feed has three views: Following, Global and Club. Under "Following", you can additionally narrow down to Friends , which are the people you follow and who follow you back. Under "Global", in the mobile app, you can filter by Routes or Posts if you are only interested in one of them at the moment.
When writing a post, you decide who sees it: global, only the club, or only friends. You can attach up to ten media items to a post, which appear as a swipeable carousel. Photos, videos, and shared routes are equally placed next to each other, so a route is a carousel element like an image.
You can tag other pilots in two ways: as a mention in the text, and as a tag directly on the image at the location where the person is visible. Anyone who has been tagged and does not want to be can remove their own tag. There are likes, there are comments with replies, comments can also be liked, and you can privately save posts for yourself. In addition, there are stories that disappear after 24 hours.
Messages
Messages are available as individual chats and group chats, with a name, picture, and description for the group, and with an admin role. Up to 50 members can be added at once per operation. If the last admin leaves the group, someone automatically takes over so that a group is never without a responsible person.
You can attach up to ten attachments to a message, i.e., pictures, videos, and files. There are reactions, quote replies, editing within the first 15 minutes, and deletion, a full-text search across messages, and checkmarks for delivered and read. In the group, the read receipt deliberately means that all have read, not just one.
You can also send entire objects from the app: a route, a post, an appointment, a pilot profile, or an aircraft. Anyone you don't want to receive messages from goes into the block list. And if your profile is private, messages from unfamiliar pilots first go into a request inbox that you can approve or decline.
What happens when you share a route?
This is where the network and flight planning actually meet, and it cost us a redesign.
In the first version, a shared route was a reference to the sender's saved route. That sounds economical and was a mistake: if the sender later changed or deleted their route, they retroactively changed a message that had long since been sent. The recipient suddenly saw something different from what had been sent to them.
Today, when sharing, a snapshot is created. It contains the route name, all waypoints, the departure and destination identifiers, total distance and estimated flight time, the planning assumptions of cruising altitude, cruising speed and fuel consumption, and a table per leg with true course, distance in NM, time, fuel quantity, and altitude. The snapshot is frozen. If you change your route afterwards, the sent version remains as it was.
We deliberately do not calculate a magnetic course. As long as no magnetic variation model is stored in the app, we prefer to show an honest true value rather than an invented local magnetic variation. The field therefore remains empty, and empty here means "not known", not "zero degrees".
Two details are intentional. First, the aircraft type is included, but the registration is not: for the recipient, it is relevant that the numbers come from a C42 and not a DR400. Which specific aircraft it was is none of their business. Second, the same snapshot goes to individual chats and to groups, to up to 20 recipients or 20 groups, respectively.
In the feed, it works accordingly: the route appears as a map preview with the route drawn in, along with start and destination markers, and departure and destination identifiers, directly in the carousel next to the photos.
The usefulness of these numbers depends on the basis of the planning. The EuroPilot Connect data primarily comes from KEYVAN Aviation via a commercial ARINC-424 license, supplemented by openAIP and open flightmaps. KEYVAN is one of eight eight operators with a valid certificate for data services (DAT) in the list of approved ATM/ANS organizations of the EASA, as of list date September 4, 2026, certificate EASA.AOA.DAT.033, Type 1, issued on February 10, 2022. Two classifications are mandatory: This certificate belongs to the data provider and its process, not to us, because EuroPilot Connect is not an approved avionics system and does not replace certified onboard equipment. And Type 1 means that the database meets data quality requirements without compatibility with a specific approved onboard application being established.
What does the club get from a pilot network?
The club is its own level in the network, not just one group among many. A post with "Club" visibility appears in the club feed, not in the global feed. Membership involves an application and approval process: you apply for membership, the board approves. There are member and admin roles, and the club page can be customized with a logo and images.
You can create club events as fly-ins, regulars' tables, maintenance days, excursions, training, or other, with RSVPs and attached images or PDF files. Those who use Vereinsflieger.de can synchronize flights, reservations, and members from there. The aircraft are maintained within the app itself; the Vereinsflieger interface does not provide them.
However, a dedicated club chat notdoes not exist. Group chats are free member lists and are not tied to a club. Anyone looking for the club chat must create the group themselves.
And the airfields?
For us, the community also includes what's at the airfield. Under "At the Airfield", we collect restaurants, flight schools, clubs, services, and events, each with a source citation and an indicator of whether the entry has been verified. Pilots rate with stars from 1 to 5, the airfield as a whole and individual places at the airfield. You can RSVP to events. Incorrect information can be reported as a correction, inappropriate content as a report.
One limitation you should be aware of: reviews appear immediately; there is no prior review. Moderation happens retrospectively upon report; an entry is automatically hidden after three reports.
What else can the network not do yet?
The most honest point first: Our network is young. The app has been in the App Store since August 5, 2026. A social network is only as valuable as the people in it, and a community that has existed for a few weeks is not yet where one that has grown for years is. Anyone who joins us today comes for flight planning and takes the network with them, not the other way around. That's the honest truth, and I'd rather say it myself than have you realize it after purchase.
Here are four specific gaps:
- You can listen to voice messages, but not record them. Playback is there, recording is missing.
- You can only write posts from an iPhone or iPad. Posting is blocked from the browser and the Mac app, but you can read everywhere.
- No club chat, see above.
- Comments are available in the feed, but not for airfield reviews. For now, it remains with stars and text within the review itself.
What does the Pilot Community App cost?
EuroPilot Connect costs 99 Euros per year and runs on up to three devices. The first 30 days are free, without you having to pay beforehand. The community part is not an add-on package or a separate subscription; it is part of the same license as the aeronautical chart, planning, and weather.
This is honestly a difference from the pure community apps mentioned above. RunwayMap, according to its own website, is free, Pilotenwelt is free for founding members until the end of 2026 and then costs 29 Euros per year. Please check the current prices with the respective provider; my information is a snapshot, not a guarantee. With us, you don't pay for the network; you pay for a complete flight app that includes the network. If you are exclusively looking for a social network and your planning is already done elsewhere, one of the cheaper offers is the more sensible choice. Our calculation works out if you need a planning and aeronautical chart app anyway.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Pilot Community App? A Pilot Community App is a social network specifically for pilots. It maintains a pilot profile with flight hours, license types, and ratings, shows a feed with posts from other pilots, and allows messages between them. The difference from general social networks lies in the context: airfields, routes, and aircraft types are their own data types and not just text.
Is there a German social network for pilots? Yes, several. In the German-speaking area, RunwayMap, Pilot Social, Pilotenwelt, and FollowMe are active, each with its own focus, plus EuroPilot Connect as a flight app with a built-in network. The scope of services and prices differ significantly, so it's worth looking at each provider's website before deciding.
Can I share my planned route with other pilots? Yes. In EuroPilot Connect, when sharing, a frozen snapshot of the route is created, with waypoints, departure and destination identifiers, total distance, flight time, and a table for each leg with true course, distance, time, fuel quantity, and altitude. We deliberately do not show a magnetic course as long as no magnetic variation model is stored. This snapshot goes into individual chats, group chats, and as an element in a feed post. If you change your route later, what was sent remains unchanged.
Are there group chats for pilots? Yes, with group name, picture, description, and an admin role. In the group, the read receipt means that all members have read. There is no separate, automatically created club chat; you create a club group yourself.
What about data protection in the pilot profile? The profile can be set to private, in which case following becomes a request, and messages from strangers first land in a request inbox. Posts, updates, flight reports, photos, questions, aircraft, and flight hours each have their own visibility switch. License number, issuing authority, and phone number are deliberately not stored at all. When sharing a route, the aircraft type is included, but not the registration.
Is the community included in the price? Yes. EuroPilot Connect costs 99 Euros per year for up to three devices, the first 30 days are free. Profile, feed, messages, club, and airfield ratings are part of the same license; there is no separate community subscription.
Do I need my own license as a club member? Yes, the license applies per pilot and for up to three devices. The club itself is a level in the network with its own feed, its own events, and its own member administration, not a separate license type.
Conclusion
The field of pilot community apps is well-occupied, and the established offerings do their job well. RunwayMap explicitly states that it stands alongside your planning program, not within it, and the other mentioned offerings also do not present themselves as planning programs, as far as their own pages indicate. This is exactly where we come in: if the network is in the same app as the planning, the shared route is a real route with courses, distances, and times, and not a screenshot.
To be honest: Our community is young, several of the alternatives mentioned are cheaper or free, and if you are only looking for a network, you are better off there. If you need a flight app anyway and don't feel like planning your flight in one app and talking about it in the next, our way is the shorter one.
More on the overall platform picture can be found in our article on the Pilot App as a Platform instead of just a Map. How the underlying map is created is shown in the article on the digital ICAO chart.
If you want to see it for yourself, you can Try EuroPilot Connect for 30 days free.