The defect system gives your school one shared, permanent record of every fault reported against an aircraft — from the moment a pilot notices something to the moment it is signed off as fixed. It keeps the pilot's plain observation separate from the engineering decision about whether the aircraft is safe to fly, and it ties that decision directly into your booking diary so a grounded aircraft can't be flown by mistake.
This page is written for school owners and office staff. It covers turning the feature on, who can do what, the day-to-day jobs of reporting and assessing defects, and how a defect affects booking out.
What is a defect?
A defect is a reported problem against one aircraft; a soft brake, a chipped prop, a radio that cuts out. Every defect has two layers:
- The report — what was observed. Written by whoever found it, usually a pilot.
- The assessment — the airworthiness decision. Made by someone qualified to judge it (typically your engineer, CFI, or the aircraft owner). This is what keeps an aircraft grounded or clears it to keep flying.
Turning the feature on
The defect system is off until an administrator enables it. Go to Admin > Defects and set it to Enabled. Once enabled:
- A Defects tab appears on each aircraft, and on the aircraft list, for anyone with the relevant permission.
- Pilots can report a defect when they finish a flight in the flight log.
- Grounded and deferred defects start to show on the aircraft list and affect booking.
When the feature is disabled, all the defect pages are hidden and the booking warnings stop — but no data is lost.
Who can do what
Access is controlled by the permissions you assign under Admin > Defects > Permissions. The important ones:
- Report a defect. Raise a new defect against an aircraft. Usually given to pilots and students.
- View the full defect list. See every defect for an aircraft, or across the whole fleet, in any status. Usually given to office staff and managers. (Even without this, anyone who can report a defect still sees their own open reports and any defect that affects flying.)
- Assess a defect. Set the airworthiness status (open, under assessment, deferred, grounded, rectified). This is the powerful one. Normally given to your engineer and CFI.
- Edit own defect / Edit any defect. Correct the wording of a report. The originator can edit their own defect only while it's status is "open".
- Delete any defect. Remove a defect entirely. Best reserved for administrators (see Deleting versus rectifying below).
Aircraft owners
If an aircraft has a contact person set as its owner, that person automatically gets full control of defects for their aircraft — they can view, edit, assess, and delete them — without needing any of the roles above. They are also emailed automatically whenever a new defect is reported against their aircraft, so an owner who leases an aircraft to the school always hears about problems first-hand. If no owner is set, the new-defect email goes to your office staff, or another role you choose under Admin > Reminders & follow-ups > New defect reported.
Reporting a defect
A pilot opens the aircraft, clicks the Defects tab, and chooses Add defect (defects can also be raised straight from the flight details form). They fill in:
- Headline — a short one-line summary, for example "Left brake felt soft".
- Description — a plain, factual account of what was observed.
- Report attachments — optional photos or documents, for example a picture of any damage.
When they save, the defect is created as Open and the owner (or office) is emailed. The aircraft is not automatically grounded — an open report is a flag for someone to look at, not a decision.
Notifications
By default, an email is sent only for new ("open") defects. You can control who receives the email, the wording, which status (or statuses) trigger it and the delay. Note you can add more follow-up emails for defects, and choose a different mix of recipients and status codes. This can work well if you want to receive all status changes to the office role, while the engineer role receives only the "assessing" status. To set up notifications, go to Admin > Reminders & follow-ups and look for the defects section.
Assessing a defect
Anyone with the Assess a defect permission sees an extra Assessment section when they open a defect. This is where the airworthiness decision is recorded. Set the Status, add Assessment notes explaining the reasoning (and any placard wording for a carried defect), and attach supporting documents if needed.
The five statuses
- Open — reported by a pilot but not yet looked at.
- Under assessment — being investigated, awaiting a judgement, parts, or more information.
- Deferred defect — assessed as safe to carry. The aircraft may keep flying with it, subject to any placard or limitation you record in the notes. Every pilot is shown a warning about it before they fly.
- Grounded — the aircraft must not fly until this is fixed.
- Rectified — fixed and signed off. When you mark a defect rectified you can record Rectification notes and attach supporting documents. It drops off the active list but stays on file for history and trend analysis.
The system always records who set the current status and when, and who reported the defect in the first place, so you have a clear audit trail without anyone having to write it down.
How defects affect bookings
This is the part that protects you, so it's worth understanding clearly.
New bookings
The aircraft will always accept new bookings even with a grounding defect. You have the option under settings to display a warning to people making a new booking if the aircraft is grounded, or allow all bookings without a message.
Booking out for a flight
If the defect is open, under assessment or grounded, the aircraft cannot be booked out and the system will show a message.
In practice the flow is: a pilot reports an open defect → your engineer/CFI/owner assesses it → they either ground the aircraft, clear it to carry the defect with a note, or mark it rectified once fixed.
Attachments
If you have the document storage function, you can attach files at each stage of a defect's life:
- Report attachments — evidence from the pilot, e.g. a photo of any damage.
- Assessment attachments — supporting the decision, e.g. a placard photo or inspection note.
- Rectification attachments — the maintenance record or sign-off showing how it was fixed.
Deleting versus rectifying
You can delete a defect, but you usually shouldn't. Deleting removes it from the record entirely, including all its attachments, and it disappears from your history and trend analysis. The right way to close out a fault is to mark it Rectified — that keeps the full story on file. Treat deletion as a tidy-up for genuine mistakes (a duplicate, or a report raised against the wrong aircraft), not as the normal way to finish with a defect.
Finding defects
If a defect exists, it will appear on the aircraft's Defects tab, and all defects for all aircraft appear under Aircraft > Defects. The filter section allows for searching the headline, description, and notes, and to filter by date reported, who reported it, and status. Active defects sort to the top; rectified ones stay available below for when you need the history.