Pilots & Ops folks—What’s your honest take on SMS tools?

T

twrightflyer

New Member
Hey folks—I'm a former Army pilot and now work in aviation consulting. I'm considering building a lightweight, modern SMS platform for smaller Part 91 and 135 operators.

Before writing a single line of code, I’m gathering input from pilots, ops directors, and safety managers to understand what really works and what doesn’t in your current system.

👉 Survey link (3 minutes, anonymous) or copy/paste: Part 91/135 Operator SMS Survey

I’ll gladly share back a summary of insights for anyone curious.

Really appreciate any time you can give!
 
We are a 91 “Small” department as you will.

I’ll be 100% honest, and SMS system which is not directly tied to our dispatch and planning software is not of interest to us. We have an SMS/TEM program but most off the shelf programs require more positions than we have for effective management.

I anticipate AI analysis of our QAR/DFDR tied to sms/ reporting will eventually be a thing, but until then it often feels like the work involved doesn’t justify the returns honestly.
 
twrightflyer said:
Hey folks—I'm a former Army pilot and now work in aviation consulting. I'm considering building a lightweight, modern SMS platform for smaller Part 91 and 135 operators.

Before writing a single line of code, I’m gathering input from pilots, ops directors, and safety managers to understand what really works and what doesn’t in your current system.

👉 Survey link (3 minutes, anonymous) or copy/paste: Part 91/135 Operator SMS Survey

I’ll gladly share back a summary of insights for anyone curious.

Really appreciate any time you can give!
Click to expand...
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twrightflyer said:
Hey folks—I'm a former Army pilot and now work in aviation consulting. I'm considering building a lightweight, modern SMS platform for smaller Part 91 and 135 operators.

Before writing a single line of code, I’m gathering input from pilots, ops directors, and safety managers to understand what really works and what doesn’t in your current system.

👉 Survey link (3 minutes, anonymous) or copy/paste: Part 91/135 Operator SMS Survey

I’ll gladly share back a summary of insights for anyone curious.

Really appreciate any time you can give!
Click to expand...
I don't fly anymore (I also write code for money), but I found most of the ops software and SMS tools were either too general or too bespoke to some other customer's needs. I don't really think there's a "one size fits all" solution to this problem because so many operations are so different. If it were me (and I guess maybe it should be), I'd be building these tools for individual operations.

"Hey, let me build you this, I'll build it the way your operation works, and when I am done, the only monthly costs will be to host it." Some of these products are hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. That's absurd for what most of them are offering.
 
ppragman said:
I don't fly anymore (I also write code for money), but I found most of the ops software and SMS tools were either too general or too bespoke to some other customer's needs. I don't really think there's a "one size fits all" solution to this problem because so many operations are so different. If it were me (and I guess maybe it should be), I'd be building these tools for individual operations.

"Hey, let me build you this, I'll build it the way your operation works, and when I am done, the only monthly costs will be to host it." Some of these products are hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month. That's absurd for what most of them are offering.
Click to expand...

Just thought, since I used to impersonate product managers from time to time in my sales engineering days...

Instead of building for individual operations - which will inevitably suffer from scope creep - what if you built a modular toolset? In other words, give them tools to build their own. I've got a hazy idea of a set of features built on whatever APIs are out there and let them Lego their way into something that works for them.
 
killbilly said:
Just thought, since I used to impersonate product managers from time to time in my sales engineering days...

Instead of building for individual operations - which will inevitably suffer from scope creep - what if you built a modular toolset? In other words, give them tools to build their own. I've got a hazy idea of a set of features built on whatever APIs are out there and let them Lego their way into something that works for them.
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eh- in theory sure, but once you go through an Is-bao audit for compliance you end up getting sold on the same product that everybody else has. Ideally SMS/TEM etc is based on a global best practices/safety criteria.

not a huge help if you let me build say “airport/weather” threats into my SMS- but then pull out schedule/duty/circadian disruption. (Yes I’m only talking about parts of a FRAT) but same idea to the larger legos if you will.
 
ppragman said:
How much does this cost you guys?

I mean, like, this looks expensive, and frankly, not very good...
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I have no idea what we pay for it. Above my pay grade.

It has some holes and some things I don't like for sure. But it handles FRATS and ASAP and Hazard/Incident reports well enough for our operation.
 
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