ShariFly

Getting started

Three parts, installed once. The website keeps each aircraft's state and logbook. The app on your PC moves the aircraft in and out of X-Plane. The plugin shows who has it and draws the wear in the cockpit. The Hot Start Challenger 650 is the only aircraft for now.

Install, everyone

  1. The app

    Get the app on your PC

    The app moves the aircraft in and out of X-Plane on your PC and installs the plugin for you. Pick your system.

    WindowsYour system
    Installer, .msi, for Windows 10 and 11
    Download for Windows
    1. Run the installer. Windows warns once because the installer is not signed yet: choose More info, then Run anyway.
    2. The app opens in the tray; its window opens from the Start menu or the desktop shortcut.
    3. Press Sign in with Discord in the app, with the same account as here.
    macOS
    Disk image, .dmg, one app for Intel and Apple silicon
    Download for macOS
    1. Open the disk image and drag ShariFly Companion into Applications.
    2. The first open is blocked because the app is not notarized yet: open System Settings, Privacy & Security, and press Open Anyway next to ShariFly Companion (on macOS 14 and earlier, right-click the app and choose Open). It then lives in the menu bar.
    3. Press Sign in with Discord in the app, with the same account as here.
    Linux
    AppImage for any distribution, or a .deb for Debian and Ubuntu
    Download for LinuxThe .deb package instead
    1. Make the AppImage executable (chmod +x) and run it, or install the .deb with your package manager.
    2. The app sits in the tray; its window opens from there.
    3. Press Sign in with Discord in the app, with the same account as here.
    • X-Plane 12.1.4 or later
    • The Hot Start Challenger 650, the only aircraft for now
    • The Discord account you signed in with

  2. The plugin

    Press the button on Set up with X-Plane closed: the app fetches the newest plugin and puts it into every X-Plane on this PC. If you prefer to do it by hand, the plugin zip unzips its SharedAirframe folder into X-Plane 12\Resources\plugins. The plugin shows who has the aircraft, draws the dirt in the cockpit, and tells the app when you fly.

  3. Sign in

    Press Sign in with Discord in the app. Your browser opens here, you approve once, and the app is signed in. The same Discord account signs you in on this site.

Owners: share your airframe

  1. Share it

    On the Fleet, press Share an airframe. Choose who may fly it: just you for now, friends with a link, anyone who asks (you approve), or anyone signed in. The dialog ends with the invite link, copied with one click. The aircraft goes up with the sharing, X-Plane closed, so a member can book it and fly at once.

  2. Invite

    Send the link. The airframe's page has Invite a pilot for more links, and the Members tab lists the requests that come in, for you to approve or decline. Every member then sees the airframe in their app.

  3. Keep an eye on it

    The airframe's page shows who has it. The logbook lists every flight, the technical log every return. Change the name, who sees it and who may join from Settings whenever you like.

Pilots: fly a shared airframe

  1. Join

    Open the invite link, or go to the airframe's page and press Ask to join. Once you are in, the airframe shows up in your app.

  2. Book the aircraft

    With X-Plane closed, press Book the aircraft. The app takes it for you and installs its latest state into your X-Plane, with a backup of what was there. Nobody else can fly it until you are done. The airframe's page then lists your flight step by step and ticks the steps as you go.

  3. Sign the pre-flight

    Open the pre-flight from the airframe's page. It shows what the record says about the aircraft: the state installed, whether it was left parked and shut down, the open defects, the deferrals, the failures, the dirt, and the note the previous pilot left you. Sign it, with a remark if you like. The signature stays on the booking and on the history.

  4. Fly, then close X-Plane

    Start X-Plane and fly. When you are parked and shut down, close X-Plane. The app waits for the files to settle, uploads the aircraft and writes the flight into the logbook. The next pilot starts from where you left it.

  5. Write the handover

    After the upload, write a few lines for the next pilot: how the aircraft behaved, what you noticed, where you left it, what is in the tanks. They read them on their pre-flight.

  6. Watch a flight

    While someone else flies the aircraft, press Watch the flight. Their state is installed on your PC read-only and the wear of their flight lands in your cockpit as it happens. Nothing to book or return on your side.

How the aircraft wears, and how it is kept

  1. Every return is judged

    When you return the aircraft, the platform checks the flight against the aircraft's own limits: how hard you landed for the weight, how fast you flew with the flaps and the gear out, how hot the engines ran and how they were started, how the brakes were used, whether you cooled the engines before shutdown. Then it writes what a crew would write in the technical log: a note, a warning that stays open until someone acknowledges it or a job closes it, or an inspection due that grounds the aircraft until the job is done. The Maintenance tab is the log. Every flight's page carries the sheet of its sector, with the fuel on board at departure and arrival and the uplift before the flight.

  2. The aircraft's own recorder

    The app sends the aircraft's flight data recorder with the return. From it the platform fills a card for every system with the last flight's figures and the trend over the last ten. A quantity drifting towards its limit becomes a watch item before it gets there: a reservoir losing fluid, the oxygen bottle emptying. A hot start is an inspection; reverse thrust below 60 knots is a note. The cards fill after your first flight with the plugin running.

  3. What the plugin measures, what the platform models

    The plugin reads the aircraft's own values: the oil servicing tank and the oxygen bottle when the aircraft loads, every ten minutes, and at the end. The aircraft does not expose the engines' oil level, so the platform keeps one the way a real engine does: it burns a little every hour, far more with the aircraft's own burning-oil failure, and the pump puts back what you add. The batteries lose charge while the aircraft stands. No value inside the aircraft's files is ever changed.

  4. Faults, as the aircraft fails

    The platform knows the aircraft's own failure library and rolls the dice at every return, over the hours, the days and the landings flown, with worse odds for a component that has an open inspection. A part gets weak before it dies: a weak pump or a slow leak comes first, and a weak part left alone is ten times likelier to fail for good. A fault you set from the aircraft's own failure menu is recognised at the return too. The app sets a scheduled fault at the next load through the aircraft's own failure system, so the EICAS and the systems react exactly as they do to the menu. Where the MEL allows flying with the fault, the entry names the item, and the owner or a captain can defer it for the item's interval.

  5. The jobs, on a parked aircraft

    The pilot who has the aircraft runs the jobs from the Maintenance tab, with the aircraft parked and shut down. Each job takes time, and the aircraft is not to be flown meanwhile. The jobs are the cleanings, a tyre or brake change, a gear or engine inspection, a battery service, the airframe check, and a repair per chapter, which clears its faults at the next load. The shop takes the long ones: the landing gear goes away for overhaul, and an engine comes off the wing and returns with its life-limited parts new. Four jobs are done on the aircraft itself at the next load, through its own panels, and read back: the oil topped up, the oxygen bottle refilled, the fire bottles serviced, the air-driven generator restowed.

  6. The programme

    The programme lists the aircraft's scheduled inspections and when each falls due, from a few hundred hours to many years apart, the landing gear's restoration and overhaul among them. Each counts from its own last completion. The airframe check does every item due or nearly due; the gear overhaul and the engine shop visit cover theirs. The overview shows the item that is furthest along.

  7. Your own lines on the sheet

    The pilot who has the aircraft can write a defect or an observation on the sheet of the last sector, in their own words. A defect is a warning for maintenance; an observation is for the record. The sheet names who wrote it. Your line never grounds the aircraft and never changes the failure odds: the platform judges from what it measures, not from what we say.

What never happens

Nothing in your aircraft's files is ever modified. The app copies whole airframe folders, only while X-Plane is closed, and keeps a backup of every booking. If a return cannot be sent, it waits among the returns waiting and nothing is lost.