Brief

Pilot Computer helps student pilots keep a real training record.

V1 ships two screens. Lesson Capture turns a post-flight voice memo into a structured training record. Readiness View shows where a PPL student stands, using comparison ranges from AOPA, FAA, and NAFI data. This page covers market, positioning, timing, roadmap, and founder background.

Quick facts

Company: Pilot Computer
Category: Pilot training software, consumer subscription
Stage: Building V1, beta opens Day 30
V1 focus: Lesson Capture and Readiness View
Audience: Active PPL students
Pricing: $39/month or $349/year, 7-day free trial
Founder: Chris DeWeese
Based: Seoul, open to relocating to SF
Contact: hello@pilotcomputer.com

Boilerplate

Pilot Computer is training software for student pilots. The first version focuses on two screens: a recorder that turns post-lesson voice memos into structured records, and a Readiness View that helps PPL students understand progress against the standard using AOPA, FAA, and NAFI reference ranges. Future versions add personalized prep, training history export, ground school, mock oral practice, and simulator coaching. The product is built by Chris DeWeese, an active PPL student and indie iOS developer.

Product scope

Lesson Capture: a 90-second voice memo after a flight becomes a structured training record. Whisper transcribes, Claude extracts hours and CFI feedback, and the student confirms everything before it touches the logbook.
Readiness View: hours by category, ACS-area confidence, next milestone, and a comparison band drawn from AOPA, FAA, and NAFI ranges.
The product treats the CFI as authoritative. The app is for self-assessment. Students keep their own data; instructors do not see it without an explicit opt-in.
The tone stays practical and direct. No streaks, no nag, no motivational copy.

Positioning

Where Pilot Computer fits.

Existing aviation software covers test prep, video instruction, flight planning, and institutional analytics. The piece nobody owns is a clean record of what happened in the lesson with your CFI. V1 focuses on that gap.

Content libraries

Sheppard, King, Sporty's, Pilot Institute, Gleim

Great for video curriculum and question banks. They do not track what your CFI told you yesterday or how your last lesson went.

Logbook apps

ForeFlight, MyFlightbook

Great at recording date, Hobbs, route, and aircraft. They are your system of record for flight time. Training feedback lives somewhere else.

Institutional analytics

Navi AI

AI debriefing hardware for schools and military programs. Strong institutional product, built for a different customer and a different workflow.

Pilot Computer

The lesson itself, structured.

Hours, maneuvers, what your CFI flagged, ACS progress from real feedback, and comparison ranges from industry data. It lives in the student pilot's pocket between lessons.

Why now

Two years ago, this capture loop was not reliable enough.

Speech-to-text crossed the threshold.

Whisper now handles noisy post-flight voice memos well, including aviation terms and callouts.

Structured extraction is reliable.

Claude pulls hours, maneuvers, and ACS concepts out of messy speech. When something is unclear, the app surfaces the ambiguity for the student to confirm.

More students, mobile-first.

US student pilot certificates grew 66% in five years, and new students expect software to feel as smooth as the rest of their phone.

Market

Who it serves, and how big the slice is.

The US student pilot population grew 66% in five years, and the average pilot age moved from 43.9 to 42.1. Pilot Computer sits in the consumer and school training-software slice, roughly a $1B to $5B opportunity today, inside a much larger global market.

370,286Active US student pilotsFAA, 2025

$1.81B → $4.93BUS pilot training market2023 → 2030 projection

$11.2B → $39.8BGlobal civil aviation flight training2025 → 2035 at 13.5% CAGR

Roadmap

What ships when.

Now

Days 1-14

Lesson Capture and Readiness View

Voice-memo lesson capture and the comparative-range Readiness View. The two screens in V1.

Soon

Days 15-30

Tonight prep and CFI handoff export

Personalized prep against the next scheduled lesson and a clean export of training history if the student switches CFIs.

V1.1

Months 2-6

Ground school, mock oral, sim coaching

Study material targeted at the gaps in captured lessons, a voice-based mock oral with a DPE-style examiner, and coaching on flights logged in MSFS or X-Plane.

Later

After consumer traction

CFI and school products

Instructor-side companion for CFIs managing several students, then a flight school dashboard. Both wait until the consumer-side data is real.

Founder

Why Chris is building this.

01
Founder is an active PPL student with mid-20s hours. Lessons that feel confusing turn into product notes that same week.
02
Five customer interviews shaped V1: a part-time student, a career-track student, a working CFI, someone who quit during training, and a flight school owner. Lesson Capture was the one feature all five wanted.
03
Track record: indie iOS apps with paid subscriptions (iCanTellTime, AirFryPro, Anti Pong, SweatCode, RunMyBids).
04
Aviation industry access comes through the founder's father, who runs a portfolio of iOS aviation apps.
05
Stack: Expo + Supabase + Anthropic + Whisper + RevenueCat + PostHog. Solo founder, fast iteration.

Media kit