Adding Aircraft

Overview

Aircraft are the core resource your club manages in Centerline. Every reservation, squawk, maintenance schedule, and flight time entry is tied to a specific aircraft. Setting up your fleet accurately from the start gives your members a reliable scheduling experience and gives your maintenance coordinators the data they need to keep aircraft airworthy.

The aircraft setup has more depth than it first appears. Beyond the basic tail number and type, you can configure per-aircraft contacts (like a dedicated mechanic), set hourly rates for billing, and establish max rental periods that override organization-wide defaults. When a plane is retired from service, Centerline's soft-delete (decommission) flow keeps all historical records intact while removing the aircraft from active booking.

Required Role

You must have the Account Owner role to add, edit, or decommission aircraft.

Adding a New Aircraft

1. Click Setup in the navigation bar.
2. Select the Aircraft tab.
3. Click Add Aircraft — a dialog will open.
4. Fill in the aircraft details (see field descriptions below).
5. Click Add Aircraft to save. The aircraft will appear immediately in your fleet list.

Aircraft Fields

• Tail Number (required) — The FAA registration number, e.g., N12345. Tail numbers must be unique within your organization. Centerline normalizes capitalization, but be consistent with how your members know the aircraft.
• Aircraft Type (required) — Make and model, e.g., "Cessna 172S" or "Piper PA-28-181". Use a consistent format across your fleet so aircraft are easy to distinguish in the scheduler and on the calendar.
• Model Year — Year of manufacture. Useful for members who need to know if they're flying an older steam-gauge aircraft vs. a glass-panel variant.
• Engine — Engine model, e.g., "Lycoming IO-360-L2A". Particularly useful for aircraft with multiple variants using different powerplants.

Editing Aircraft

To update an aircraft's information after it has been added:

1. On the Aircraft tab, find the aircraft in the fleet list.
2. Click the Edit (pencil) button on the right side of the aircraft row.
3. Update any fields in the edit dialog.
4. Click Update Aircraft to save.

Aircraft Contacts

Each aircraft can have its own dedicated contacts — separate from your organization-wide contacts. This is especially valuable for clubs where different aircraft use different maintenance shops, or where a specific CFI is the primary instructor for a particular plane.

Aircraft contacts are managed from within the Edit Aircraft dialog:

1. Open the Edit Aircraft dialog for the relevant aircraft.
2. Scroll down to the Contacts section below the aircraft details form.
3. Click Add Contact.
4. Choose Member (for club members) or External (for mechanics, shops, etc.).
5. Select the person and enter a description for their role (e.g., "Primary A&P", "Dedicated CFI").
6. Click Add.

Aircraft contacts appear on the aircraft detail page visible to all members, making it easy for pilots to know who to contact about that specific airframe.

Reordering Aircraft

The order aircraft appear in your fleet list controls how they're displayed on the calendar and in the reservation scheduler. To reorder:

• Use the up/down arrow buttons on the left side of each aircraft row in the fleet list.

Put your most-used aircraft first so members don't have to scroll past rarely-flown planes to find the one they want.

Decommissioning Aircraft

When an aircraft leaves your fleet — sold, long-term maintenance, retired from service — you should decommission it rather than trying to delete it. Decommissioning is a soft delete: it removes the aircraft from the active scheduler, the calendar, and reservation booking, but preserves all historical reservations, squawks, maintenance records, and flight time entries associated with that aircraft.

To decommission an aircraft:

1. Find the aircraft in the fleet list on the Aircraft tab.
2. Click the Decommission (trash) button on the right side of the row.
3. Confirm the action in the prompt.

Decommissioned aircraft no longer count toward your subscription quantity. If you ever need to review historical records for a decommissioned aircraft, contact support.

Note: Decommissioning is permanent within the UI — there is no undo button. Make sure you mean it before confirming.

Subscription and Aircraft Count

Centerline's subscription is priced per active (non-decommissioned) aircraft. When you add an aircraft, the subscription quantity updates automatically. When you decommission an aircraft, the quantity updates automatically as well. You can always see your current active aircraft count on the Subscription tab in Setup.

Tips

• Use consistent naming for aircraft types across your fleet. "Cessna 172S" and "C172S" are the same aircraft, but Centerline treats them as different types in filters and reports.
• Add aircraft contacts as soon as you know which mechanic or CFI is associated with each aircraft — this information is most useful during a squawk or AOG situation when someone needs to act quickly.
• If a plane goes on a long-term annual inspection and won't be available for months, consider whether to leave it active (with a maintenance block on the calendar) or decommission it, depending on whether you want members to see it as "coming back" or it's truly out of service.
• Set the engine field accurately — when maintenance schedules involve engine-specific items (like TBO), having the engine model recorded helps your maintenance coordinator stay organized.