Social Features Handbook
PlaneWX is built for pilots who fly together — at home airports, on fly-in weekends, and in type-specific communities. This guide covers every social surface: what it does, who can see what, and how to stay as private or as connected as you want.
Everything here is optional. Your briefings, WX Scores, and personal minimums work exactly the same whether you share nothing or everything.
In this guide
Three Ways to Share Your Flying
PlaneWX has three distinct sharing models. They don't overlap — pick the ones that fit how you actually fly.
My Crew
Private, named access for family, passengers, CFIs, and mentors. They see your full briefing — not just a route summary.
My Crew guidePublic profile & following
An optional page at your handle URL. Pilots who follow you see public trip summaries in their Friends feed — route, date, WX Score.
Public profile guideCommunity groups
Airport, aircraft-type, and fly-in groups with a shared flight board, map, and message board. Some membership is automatic; events are always opt-in.
Community groups guideThe Four Dashboard Tabs
Social features live on your home dashboard, alongside My Trips:
My Trips
Your private trip list. Event-group banners may appear here when you have flights to a fly-in airport — join or share from the banner.
Friends
Activity from pilots you follow, My Crew shared trips, milestone cards, personal posts, and the setup checklist for new social pilots. Toggle Feed vs People to manage your network.
Groups
Your joined groups, suggested aircraft-type groups, upcoming events, group search, and Create (event or community group). Open any group for its flight board, map, and message board.
Discover
Find pilots by name, handle, or airport. Filter by aircraft family, activity, or airports near you. Leaderboards sit at the top. Follow pilots directly from their cards.
Privacy & Trip Sharing
Two master switches in Profile → Friends & Community control almost everything social. The live summary card — What other pilots can see right now — updates as you change settings.
Profile Visible
On by defaultWhen on, your profile loads at planewx.ai/yourhandle, you appear in Discover, and you may be auto-added to your home airport's group. Turn off → profile 404s, you vanish from group rosters and discovery lists.
Trip Sharing mode
Off by default- Off — no trips on your public profile or followers' feeds
- I'll pick — only trips you mark public appear
- All trips — every non-private trip is shared going forward
Per-trip overrides
On My Trips and the briefing page, each trip has a community visibility toggle. In All trips mode, hide individual flights. In I'll pick mode, explicitly mark trips public. This also controls whether a trip appears on your public profile and in followers' Friends feeds.
Additional opt-in toggles: hide tail number (default on), show flight stats, show leaderboard ranks, and show group memberships on your public profile. Field-level visibility (email, ratings, hours) lives on Profile → Pilot.
Full public profile guidePersonal posts
Write a post at the top of the Friends feed — text, one photo, or both. Paste a screenshot, pick a file, or drag one in. New posts default to Followers. Change that default on Profile, or pick Followers or Public for this post only.
Public posts also appear on your profile. Posts stay in the Friends feed for 30 days. Anyone signed in who can see a post can reply. Mentions notify that pilot; there is no follower bell and no @all blast.
Friends Tab
Setup checklist (new pilots)
When you first open Friends, a four-step checklist walks you through: (1) choose a trip-sharing mode, (2) set up your pilot profile, (3) review privacy settings, (4) share a flight to a group. Progress saves to your account and follows you across devices. Dismiss it anytime — it won't block anything.
Feed view
The feed merges three sources:
- My Crew trips — full briefing access via shared links
- Following feed — public trip summaries from pilots you follow
- Milestones — achievement cards (hours, ratings, new aircraft, etc.) from followed pilots
- Your own public flights and milestones appear in this feed too, so you can see comments and hide a card. A comment or reaction on your card shows up under the Social bell.
Sort chronologically or group by pilot. Narrow to flights or posts. Filter to one pilot, search by handle, and react (✈️ 🌩️ 💪 🙏 🔥) or leave quick comments on trip cards. A Flying together banner appears when you and followed pilots are heading to the same airport around the same time.
People view
Manage Following, see Followers, and browse Suggested pilots. Follow from a public profile, Discover, or suggested cards. Unfollow anytime — they won't be notified.
Feed Comment Threads
Trip, milestone, and personal-post cards on the Friends feed support threaded comments. Expand a card to read the full thread, reply, mention another pilot, or react to individual comments.
Reply to a comment
Tap Reply under a top-level comment. Your reply appears nested beneath it. Replies do not have their own Reply button — threads are two levels only: a comment and its replies, not reply-to-reply.
Mention a pilot
Type @ in the composer to search by handle. A mention notifies the pilot only when the handle matches a real, visible profile. Unknown handles stay plain text and notify nobody.
React to a comment
Tap the emoji control on any comment to add any emoji. You can add several different emojis to the same comment. Tap your own emoji again to remove it. Card-level reactions (the five aviation emojis on the trip row) are separate and unchanged.
Report a comment
Any reader can report a comment. The comment author is not notified. PlaneWX admins receive the report for review.
Who can edit or delete
- Comment author — edit or delete their own comment or reply.
- Card owner — delete any comment on their own trip or milestone card.
Editing sets an (edited) label on the comment. Edits do not send new notifications, including when you add a new @mention on edit.
What sends a Social bell notification
- New top-level comment on your card — same as before.
- Reply to your comment — parent comment author only.
- @mention of your handle in a comment or reply.
- Emoji on your comment — comment author only; same 24-hour cooldown per actor as card reactions.
Card-level reactions, reporting, and editing do not send these notifications. Several similar events within a few minutes may batch into one bell row.
Discover Tab
Discover is how you find pilots you don't already follow. Leaderboards at the top rank hours flown, miles, PAVE completions, mentoring, and followers (monthly and all-time).
Search
Name, handle, or airport code — PlaneWX detects which you mean.
Filters
Active pilots only, your upcoming trip airports, nearby airports, aircraft family chips (TBM, SR22, etc.).
Groups
Open the Groups tab to see your memberships, browse upcoming events, and search for any group by name, aircraft type, or airport code.
Airport groups
Auto-joined when home airport is set and Profile Visible is on. Leave anytime — opt-out is remembered.
Event groups
Fly-ins like Oshkosh — opt-in Join only. Paid tiers can host events (Free: 0, Casual: 1, Pro: 3, Pro+: 5 active events).
Aircraft-type groups
SR22, TBM, Vision Jet, etc. Manual join. Suggested from aircraft in your profile — dismiss suggestions you don't want, then search to re-find them.
Community groups
Ongoing clubs or orgs you create (e.g. a local mentoring group). Invite-only by default; optional home airport suggests local pilots to invite. No end date. Paid tiers: Casual/Pro 1, Pro+ 3.
| Group type | How you join | Flights on the board |
|---|---|---|
| Airport | Automatic (if profile visible + home airport set) | To/from home airport when Trip Sharing is All, or when you Share to Group |
| Event | Tap Join | Routes to the event airport appear anonymously by default; Share to Group to show your name |
| Aircraft | Tap Join (or from suggestions) | Matching routes appear anonymously by default; named when Trip Sharing is All or Share to Group |
| Community | Invite or Join (if open) | Only trips you Share to Group — no auto-ingest of home-airport flights |
Search groups
Use the search bar on the Groups tab (2+ characters). Matches name, aircraft root, airport code, and description.
Dismiss suggestions
Suggested aircraft groups have an ✕ in the corner. Dismissed groups stay hidden from suggestions but remain searchable.
Inside any group: Posts (message board, members only to read/post), Trips (flight board), Pilots (roster), and a Flight map. Per-group notification bell: Muted, Replies to my posts (default), or All posts.
Full community groups guide (visibility table, moderation, opt-out)Badges & Milestones
Badges appear on your public profile and Discover cards — earned automatically for briefed flights, PAVE streaks, Oshkosh trips, and social activity (Social Pilot, Popular, Community Pillar).
Milestone cards in the Friends feed announce achievements from you and the pilots you follow — new ratings, hour milestones, new aircraft, and more. Your own milestones respect the same privacy toggles as your profile.
All 15 badges and 5 leaderboardsStaying Private
Want PlaneWX for weather only? Here's the complete opt-out:
- Keep Trip Sharing: Off and don't follow anyone.
- Turn off Profile Visible to leave airport groups and hide from Discover.
- Leave any groups under Groups → Your Groups.
- Never tap Join on event groups.
My Crew is separate — only people you explicitly invite see full briefings. None of the above affects your WX Scores, auto-refresh, or PAVE assessments.
Group flight boards are public
Anyone with a group link can view the roster, flight board, and map — even without a PlaneWX account. Message boards require membership. See the visibility table in the Community Groups guide.
Public Profile & Following
Handle URL, field visibility, per-trip toggles.
Community Groups
Airport, event, aircraft, and club groups — create, invite, mentor scope.
My Crew
Full briefing access for family and CFIs.
Badges & Leaderboards
Every badge criteria and leaderboard category.