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About PlaneWX

My Crew

Share your flights with the people who care — family who want peace of mind, and fellow pilots who want to review the full briefing.

My Crew serves three distinct purposes:

Reduce External Pressure

When your spouse sees weather deteriorating days in advance, they understand why you might need to postpone — before you're standing at the airport with bags packed. Informed families push back less.

Keep Loved Ones Informed

Your family knows when you're planning to fly, gets a heads-up when you depart, and receives the most important message of all when you land safely. Peace of mind for everyone.

Collaborate on Weather Decisions

Grant full briefing access to your CFI, mentor, or flying buddy and they see exactly what you see — the complete AI analysis, scores, icing grids, and hazard details. They can leave comments anchored to specific sections of the briefing, turning your weather planning into a real conversation before every flight.

Two Kinds of Crew Members

Not everyone in your crew needs the same information. PlaneWX gives you two distinct sharing modes — one designed for family, and one designed for pilots.

Family & Friends

Standard access

For spouses, parents, or anyone who cares about your safety but isn't a pilot. They receive friendly, plain-English updates — no scores, no aviation jargon, no numbers that could cause unnecessary worry.

  • Email updates in plain English
  • Status labels like "Looking good" or "Weather concerns noted"
  • No account required — email-only works fine
  • If they have a PlaneWX account, they see a simplified dashboard

Why no score? A "40%" score is meaningful to a pilot. To a worried spouse, it reads as "40% chance something goes wrong." We protect your crew from anxiety-inducing data they don't have the context to interpret correctly.

Pilots & Mentors

Full briefing access

For CFIs, mentors, co-pilots, or flying buddies who need to see the full picture. They see exactly what you see — the complete AI analysis, scores, icing and turbulence grids, hazard chips, and real-time updates.

  • Complete weather briefing with WX Score
  • Icing, turbulence, ceilings, and hazard details
  • Comments and reactions on briefing sections
  • Shared flights appear in their PlaneWX dashboard

Requires a PlaneWX account. When you grant full briefing access, PlaneWX sends an invitation email with a sign-up link. Once they create their account, your shared flights appear automatically in their dashboard.

Access is about audience, not relationship. A pilot spouse might want full briefing access. A non-pilot CFI assistant might only need standard access. You decide — the toggle is per person, not per relationship type.

Managing Your Crew Roster

Your crew roster lives in Settings → Trip Crew. This is your permanent list of people who follow your flights — you add them once, and PlaneWX handles the rest.

Adding a Crew Member

  1. 1. Go to Settings → Trip Crew and click + Add Person
  2. 2. Enter their name, email, and relationship (Friend, Spouse, CFI, etc.)
  3. 3. Choose whether to enable Full Briefing Access (for pilots) or leave it off (for family)
  4. 4. Optionally enable Auto-add to new trips so they're always included going forward
  5. 5. Click Save — PlaneWX sends a welcome email automatically

Auto-Add to New Trips

When this toggle is on, the crew member is automatically added as a watcher every time you create a new trip — you never have to remember to add them manually. This is ideal for a CFI who reviews all your planned flights, or a spouse who wants to be kept in the loop on everything.

Enabling mid-roster? When you turn on Auto-add for an existing crew member, PlaneWX will ask if you also want to add them to your current active trips. Choose Yes, add to existing trips and they'll be added to every active (non-archived) trip in one step — and receive a single summary email, not one per trip.

Editing a Crew Member

Click the pencil icon next to any crew member to edit their name, relationship, notification preferences, or access level. Changes take effect immediately — if you upgrade someone from standard to full briefing access, their existing watcher entries on all trips are updated automatically.

Removing a Crew Member

Click the trash icon and confirm the removal. The crew member is removed from your roster and from all trips they were watching — they'll stop receiving notifications immediately. As a courtesy, PlaneWX sends them a brief, neutral email letting them know they'll no longer receive flight updates from you.

Note: Removal is permanent and global. If you want to stop someone from watching a single trip without removing them from your roster, use the Trip Crew panel inside the briefing to remove them from just that leg.

Adding Crew to a Specific Trip

You can also add people directly from inside a trip's briefing. Open the briefing, click the 👥 Trip Crew button, and choose how to add someone:

From My Crew

Pick anyone already on your permanent roster. A small banner shows their current briefing access level so you always know what they'll see before adding them.

New Person

Enter a name and email for someone not yet on your roster. They'll be added to your permanent crew automatically (you can manage their settings in Settings → Trip Crew anytime). You can also set their briefing access level right here with the Full Briefing Access toggle.

This Leg Only vs. All Legs in Trip

On multi-leg trips, a scope selector appears when adding a watcher. Choose This leg only to add them to a single leg, or All legs in trip to cover the whole journey. An All legs badge appears on their entry in the crew list, and they won't receive duplicate emails for each leg.

What Crew Members See

Standard Watchers (Family & Friends)

Standard watchers receive email updates only — no PlaneWX account is required. The emails use plain English and contain none of the technical aviation scores or data that could cause confusion or worry.

If a standard watcher already has a PlaneWX account, they'll also see your shared flights in their dashboard under a Shared with me section. Each flight appears as a simplified card showing the route, date, aircraft, and a plain-English status label — but no score numbers, no hazard chips, and no section-level detail.

Here's what standard watchers see instead of WX Scores:

YOU SEE
GO (80–100%)
THEY SEE
✅ Looking good
YOU SEE
CAUTION (60–79%)
THEY SEE
⚠️ Weather concerns noted
YOU SEE
NO-GO (<60%)
THEY SEE
⛅ Conditions are challenging

Full Briefing Watchers (Pilots & Mentors)

Crew members with Full Briefing Access see the complete picture — identical to what you see as the pilot. Once they have a PlaneWX account, shared flights appear in their own Shared with me dashboard, grouped by pilot with the WX Score, GO/CAUTION/NO-GO badge, hazard chips, flight rules, altitude, and aircraft all visible.

Full briefing

Complete AI weather analysis with all hazard sections

Real-time updates

Dashboard refreshes automatically when the briefing updates

Comments

Leave section-level comments and reactions on the briefing

Shared with me dashboard: When multiple pilots share flights with the same crew member (e.g., a CFI with students), trips are grouped by pilot. Flights that are departing within 48 hours or have a score below 80 are flagged with an amber attention indicator so the mentor can quickly see which flights need a closer look.

Notification Emails

Crew members receive automatic email updates as your departure approaches. The events they receive depend on their configured alert types.

Trip createdNotified immediately when a new trip is saved
Weather concernWhen a significant hazard is identified
Decision pointWhen the WX Score crosses a key threshold
DepartureYou're airborne — crew knows the flight is underway
En routePeriodic updates during the flight
ArrivalYou've landed safely — the most important one
DelayDeparture is pushed back
CancellationFlight is called off

Alert type preferences are set per crew member in Settings → Trip Crew. By default, new crew members are subscribed to all 8 standard alert types.

No Email Blasts

When you add a crew member to multiple existing trips at once (using the backfill option when enabling Auto-add), PlaneWX sends a single summary email — not one email per trip. The email tells them how many flights they've been added to and what to expect next.

Enabling Full Briefing Access

Full Briefing Access can be toggled on or off for any crew member at any time — from the crew roster in Settings, or right when adding someone from inside a trip.

From Settings → Trip Crew:

  1. 1. Edit any crew member (pencil icon)
  2. 2. Toggle on Full briefing access
  3. 3. Save — an invitation email is sent automatically
  4. 4. Once they create their account, shared trips appear in their dashboard immediately

When adding from inside a trip:

  1. 1. Open the briefing and click 👥 Trip Crew → Add
  2. 2. Choose New Person and enter their details
  3. 3. Check the Full briefing access box if appropriate
  4. 4. Click Add Watcher — they're saved to your crew roster and added to the trip in one step

Already a PlaneWX user? If the crew member already has a PlaneWX account under the same email address, they're linked immediately — no invitation email is sent, and their shared flights appear in their dashboard right away.

Comments & Reactions on Briefings

Crew members with Full Briefing Access can leave comments and emoji reactions directly on your briefing — anchored to specific sections like Icing or Ceilings. This creates a live discussion thread between you and your mentor, CFI, or co-pilot.

How it works

  • Crew members open the shared briefing from their dashboard or from the invitation email link
  • A comment icon appears on each briefing section — click it to leave a note anchored to that section
  • You see all crew comments in your own briefing view as well
  • Both you and the commenter receive an in-app notification (and email if you're not online) when a new comment is posted
  • Comments are private — only you and crew members with full briefing access can see them

Typical Notification Timeline

Here's what your crew typically experiences from the moment you create a trip to landing:

🗓️
Trip created
Crew receives welcome email with trip details
📡
7+ days out
Long-range pattern summary (if available)
🌦️
24–48h out
Detailed forecast available — score and conditions shared
📊
Score changes
Immediate alert if WX Score shifts ±15 points or status changes
✈️
Departure
"[Pilot] is airborne" — crew knows the flight is underway
🏁
Arrival
"[Pilot] has landed safely" — the most important message

Tips & Best Practices

  • Add your CFI or mentor with Auto-add enabled — they'll see every planned trip automatically
  • Grant full briefing access to anyone who is a pilot — they'll appreciate seeing the full picture
  • Keep full briefing access off for non-pilots — the simplified view is more reassuring, not less
  • Use "All legs in trip" when adding a co-pilot to a multi-leg journey — one entry covers every leg
  • Crew members can unsubscribe from emails at any time using the link in any notification
  • The arrival notification matters most to family — it's the "I landed safely" message they're waiting for