Pilot Profile
Your certificate, ratings, and flight experience - kept current with as little manual upkeep as possible.
Why Your Pilot Profile Matters#
Go to Profile → Pilot to manage the information that makes your FRATs reflect real, current proficiency - not a number you set once and forgot about. Your certificate, ratings, and recent flight experience feed directly into the Pilot ("P") category of every FRAT assessment you complete.
Pilot Profile Fields#
Basic Information
- • Handle - Your display name across Mentors, My Crew, and shared briefings
- • First / Last Name - Used on shared briefings
- • Home Airport - Powers the Regional Weather Summary and your morning digest
- • Phone Number - Optional. Pre-Flight Text (Pro Plus) sends to this number once it is verified.
Certificate & Ratings
- • Pilot Certificate - Student, Sport, Private, Commercial, or ATP
- • Instrument Rating, Multi-Engine, CFI - Toggle any that apply
Certificate level and total hours determine which crosswind scoring tier applies to your briefings - see the FAQs for details on gusty crosswind handling.
Flight Experience
- • Total Flight Hours - Your lifetime logged hours (entered manually)
- • Hours (Last 30 Days) - Recent flight activity, used for currency assessment
Auto-Calculated "Hours (Last 30 Days)"#
Instead of remembering to update your recent flight time by hand, PlaneWX can calculate it for you from trips with the same "flown" status shown on your trip cards - including ADS-B auto-confirmed, needs-confirmation, and Mark flown (manual confirmed). Every time you visit your Pilot profile, PlaneWX totals the flight time from those flown trips in the trailing 30 days and keeps the field in sync automatically.
On by default
Every pilot starts with "Auto-calculate from flights" turned on. You don't need to do anything - the field fills in and updates itself as you fly.
How the hours are calculated
For each flown trip in the last 30 days, PlaneWX estimates flight duration using the best data available, in this order:
- Actual block time - from ADS-B-confirmed departure and arrival times, when available
- Planned time en route (ETE) - your flight's filed/estimated time, if block time isn't available
- Distance ÷ 150 kt - a conservative fallback estimate when neither of the above exists
Multi-leg trips sum every leg's estimated duration. Only trips that count as flown on your trip cards (including Mark flown) with an actual departure in the window are counted - planned trips that haven't been flown yet (or weren't matched) are excluded.
Prefer to Enter Hours Manually?#
Some pilots fly aircraft PlaneWX can't ADS-B-match (gliders, some experimental or vintage aircraft without transponders) or simply prefer full manual control. You're always in charge:
Turn off the switch
Next to "Hours (Last 30 Days)," flip Auto-calculate from flights off. The field becomes a normal manual entry, and PlaneWX will never overwrite whatever you type - even if you have flown trips on file.
Or pull in the total on demand
While auto-calculate is off, a "Calculate from my flights flown" button appears. Click it any time to fill the field with your current flown-trip total (same as trip cards) - a one-time sync, not an ongoing one. Adjust it further and save; it stays exactly as you left it.
You can turn auto-calculate back on at any time - PlaneWX will resume keeping the field in sync going forward.
How This Feeds Your FRAT#
FRAT's Pilot section asks a related but separate question - how many hours you've flown in the specific aircraft assigned to that trip, over the last 30 days. Starting a brand-new assessment pre-fills that slider from the same ADS-B data, scoped to that tail number, so your currency risk score reflects real recent flying by default instead of a generic placeholder.
Rounded down, never up
The FRAT prefill always rounds your ADS-B hours down to the nearest whole hour. Since the risk score treats fewer than 5 or 10 hours as progressively higher risk, this ensures an auto-filled value can never understate your currency risk.
As soon as you adjust the slider yourself, your value takes over completely - PlaneWX will never overwrite a currency answer you've personally reviewed and set. See FRAT for the full methodology.
Why Automate This?
Recency of experience is one of the biggest predictors of pilot risk, but it's also one of the most tedious things to keep up to date by hand. Automating it means your currency assessment reflects reality - even on weeks you forgot to update your profile - while always leaving the door open to take back manual control.