OpenFBO
Last update 3/25/2002
Hosted by Sourceforge.net
Definition: FBO == Fixed Base Operator; A business situated at the airport
The demo and devel sites will be down until my DSL line is installed
on 4/8/02
View the production site
here (Log on as Administrator using: admin/hackable; Or as a
guest: guest/hackable)
View the development site here
Description and Motivation:
In the aviation industry, FBO's have very little selection when
choosing aircraft scheduling and accounting software. I propose an open source solution that will provide online aircraft scheduling, dispatch, customer tracking, billing, and point of sales.
There are two major players in online aircraft scheduling:
ScheduleMaster and MyFBO. Both services are very professional, but the problem for many FBO's is that the payment schedule for both of these systems is per aircraft. It is my understanding that aircraft fly only fly 3-5% of the year. The rest of the time, they are sitting on the tarmac waiting for a customer. A per aircraft system quickly becomes too expensive for the medium sized FBO and it is just one more expense to pass on to the customer.
Goals:
I would like to see an open source FBO management package built on a web based client/server architecture. I propose this system be built upon PostgresQL and MySQL, written in PHP, and served by Apache. And wouldn't you know it, there is already a great open source project out there called Meeting Room Booking System (MRBS) that runs on PostgresQL or MySQL, is written in PHP, and served by Apache. MRBS provides a slick web interface for scheduling meeting rooms and displaying that information. I believe OpenFBO would be best implemented as an extension of MRBS.
Current Features:
- View the Schedule by Day, Week, Year
- View Aircraft by Make or Model, or view all aircraft at once
- View Instructors by Teaching credential or all instructors at once
- Click on an Aircraft heading to view information and pictures
- Print preview option to reduce clutter and print daily,weekly,or monthly
schedules
- Restrict Schedule changes/deletions within a specified time (e.g. 1 day)
- Set business hours dynamically from the "OpenFBO Config" tool
- Set the aircraft hourly rental rate and/or rental fee for the Make,
Model, or for each specific aircraft
- User registration and authentication system provides limited, unintrusive
user tracking
- Records User's last logon date+time
- Records total number of page views
- Users may enter the Certificates, Ratings, and Endorsements they possess
- Each user may be enabled/disabled/deleted by the administrator
- Schedule Entries can only be made by registered, authenticated users
- Only authenticated users may change/delete schedule entries
- Authenticated users may set "Repeat" schedule entries (e.g. I want to fly
N51380 Every Monday,Wednesday, and Friday from 1pm - 6pm Until January 14,
2002)
- Schedule Entries depicted on the schedule using Usernames
- View a schedule entry to see when it was made, notes about the proposed
flight/lesson, and a cost estimate based on the duration of the entry and
rental rate.
- Add as many aircraft to the database as you want
- Add/Change/Delete pictures of each aircraft -- Pictures are automatically
converted to JPEG and dynamically resized for display as needed
- Record Hobbs, tach, year, equipment code, Weight and Balance info, serial
number, Make, Model, Minimum Pilot Certificate to fly the aircraft,
Required Pilot Ratings to fly the aircraft, and Required pilot
endorsements.
Timeline: (See the task list)
Programmers: