About

Understanding the sponsor, context, and the problem we set out to solve

Problem Statement

Initial Framing

Sponsor & Context

Initial Assumptions

How might we implement a social feature that enhances collaboration, information sharing, and a sense of community among pilots in the ForeFlight experience?

This project was conducted in partnership with Jeppesen ForeFlight, the industry standard Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) used by general aviation, business, and military pilots worldwide.

Global Users

500K + pilots

worldwide

Founded

2007

Acquired

Boeing 2019

Thoma Bravo (2025)

ForeFlight supports nearly every stage of the flight-planning process, including route planning, weather analysis, airport information, navigation, and flight logging. Since pilots rely on the platform during safety-critical activities, the product prioritizes efficiency, clarity, and reliability. Despite aviation being inherently collaborative, ForeFlight remains largely an individual-use tool. Pilots routinely seek mentorship, airport recommendations, operational advice, and more; But these interactions typically occur outside the platform. Information is scattered across Reddit communities, Facebook groups, Discord servers, personal networks, and more.

This disconnect presents an opportunity to explore how community-driven interaction could be thoughtfully intergrated into ForeFlight without compromising its identity as a safety-critical aviation tool. Rather than transforming ForeFlight into a social network, our project investigates how pilots might share knowledge, build trust, and connect with one another within the workflows they already use

Why this matters

Aviation is social

Student pilots depend on mentors, Experienced pilots rely on word-of-mouth for local airport quirks that are never formally documented. Yet ForeFlight, the tool most pilots have open during planning, offers no way to tap into this knowledge.

Research sharpens the stakes

Haffey & Gardner-Vandy (2025) found that pilots who feel socially supported are more likely to persist in training, suggesting community connection has real retention implications for ForeFlight.

Design must earn its place

Sharma et al. (2011) caution that social features in professional tools backfire when perceived as misaligned with the core purpose, meaning the design must earn its place.

Safety-first, always

Simon et al. (2021) show that aviation tools must minimize cognitive load during high-demand moments, setting a hard constraint on any new feature.

Trust and safety concerns would be significant
Pilots want more ways to connect and share knowledge
Our primary users would be general aviation pilots

We began with a deliberately open design question rather than a predetermined situation. Our assumption was that some form of social integration in ForeFlight could be valuable, but we help that loosely.
We assumed our primary users would be general aviation pilots; student pilots and recreational flyers who lack the institutional support structures available to commercial pilots, and who are most likely to seek peer knowledge and community.
We also assumed that trust and safety concerns would be significant, but we needed research to tell us exactly how significant, and what forms they would take.
Critically, we did not assume that social features should live inside ForeFlight's core interface. That question, embedded vs. separate, was one of the first things we needed evidence to answer.