A network for pilots where trust is earned, not claimed

01 — Why it exists

Why I built it

02 — Earning trust

How verification works

Anyone can create an account. Being verified means a pilot who already holds it has vouched for you. There is one rule and it is the same for everyone, wherever you fly.

Pilots vouch for pilot licences, ratings and medicals. Cabin crew, dispatch, air traffic control and maintenance certificates show as self-reported for now, until those fields have members of their own to vouch for them.

1. 1

   Create your account

   Pick pilot, student pilot, aviation professional, enthusiast or business. Fill in your home airport and the ratings you hold.

2. 2

   Connect with a verified pilot who knows you

   An instructor, someone from your club, the person you bought your aircraft from. Look for the blue seal on their profile.

3. 3

   Get 2 pilots to endorse your identity

   The request goes from your profile to theirs; they confirm you are who you say you are. Once 2 verified pilots have vouched for you, the blue seal is yours.

4. 4

   Get your qualifications endorsed one at a time

   A licence or rating on your profile shows a seal only once a verified pilot has endorsed that specific qualification.

Verification is a social signal from other pilots, not a check against a licensing authority. For anything safety-critical or contractual, confirm credentials with the issuing authority. The terms say this in full.

03 — What you can do

What you can do, and what it takes

Most of the platform is open to every member. A few things ask for a connection, a verified seal, or a business you manage, because they carry someone else's reputation with them.

• Any member
• Pilot account
• Connected
• Verified pilot
• Business owner or manager

• Browse the directories

  Any member

  Pilots, instructors, ferry pilots, airports, businesses, clubs, the aircraft registry and aircraft for sale, all under Browse in the top bar, plus the job board. Airports show by their codes, so a place reads at a glance. Public profiles and listings are visible to search engines too.

• Post, comment and like on the feed

  Any member

  Every post carries an audience: public, members only, your connections, or a list you build. Comments and likes follow the post. Your feed leads with your connections and with what's happening near your home airport. Every post shows who wrote it, with their licence, ratings, employer and home airport under their name. Beside it sit your profile card, your field (the pilots, instructors and aircraft based at your home airport), and pilots and jobs you might want to know about.

• Make your profile yours

  Any member

  A profile photo, and a banner image across the top of your card that you drag into place. The banner follows you: your profile, your card on the feed and in the pilot directory, and your instructor or ferry-pilot listing. Without one, you get the default navy banner.

• Connect with other pilots

  Any member

  Send a request from any profile. A connection is what most of the rest hangs off.

• Message someone

  Connected

  Connect first: your note goes with the request, and chat opens once it's accepted. If someone asks to connect with you, you can message them before you accept. Nobody can cold-message you, except recruiters on the Recruiter plan when you're open to new roles.

• Review an airport, business or ferry pilot

  Any member

  One review per person per place, and re-submitting edits it. An airport review can carry a photo. You can't review a business you own or work for, or yourself.

• Review an instructor

  Connected

  Students review their own instructors, so you have to be connected to the instructor first.

• Report a fuel price

  Any member

  What you paid, in the currency and unit on the pump, on the day you saw it. The newest report per fuel type leads the airport page.

• Keep a logbook and albums

  Pilot account

  Flights with photos, attached to the aircraft and the airports. Share a flight to the feed or keep it private.

• Add your work history

  Any member

  Employers, flight schools and roles on your profile. A business you list that isn't on av8db yet appears in the directory as an unclaimed listing, ready for its owner to claim.

• Add an aircraft and list it for sale

  Any member

  Anyone connected to an aircraft can add it and list it for sale: its owner, its manager, a broker selling it, or someone who's flown it (an operator) or rented it. The listing shows how the seller is connected. Once the owner claims the aircraft, they manage it and any listing for it from then on — they decide whether its manager or broker can edit it too, can take over a listing as its seller, and they're told when someone else lists it. There's one listing per aircraft, only its owner or manager can offer it for rent, and anyone can remove their own connection (the owner can remove anyone's).

• Claim a business

  Any member

  Prove an email address on the business's own website domain, and the listing is yours. Free webmail can't claim; an admin can assign ownership for a business without a website yet. New businesses go live straight away and get a moderator's look afterwards.

• Build your fleet

  Business owner or manager

  Register the aircraft you own, and for the ones you operate but don't own — an owner's aircraft on your line — ask the owner to authorize you. Both show in your fleet, labelled owned or authorized by owner.

• Post jobs and events

  Business owner or manager

  Verified businesses post jobs and fly-ins. Candidates apply in the app or on the site; you see applicants in one place. Add HR and recruiters to your hiring team so they can post roles too.

• Endorse another pilot

  Verified pilot

  Vouch for someone's identity, or for a specific qualification. Newly verified pilots wait 14 days before they can endorse others.

• Invite people from your contacts

  Any member

  From the app, as many as you like: one person at a time, by a text from your own number or a single email. The person you invite arrives already connected to you. Bulk email invites on the site need a verified account and are capped at 10 a week.

• Share your card

  Any member

  A card with your photo, ratings and home airport, and a QR code for your own join link. Post it, print it or text it: anyone who joins through it arrives connected to you. Instructors also get a version to hand their students.

Getting around the site

• On a computer, the top bar has Home, Network, Jobs and Notifications, your own menu under Me, and every directory under Browse. Messages open from the chat bubble in the corner.
• On a phone's browser, a tab bar along the bottom has Home, Network, Post, Jobs and Messages; the menu at the top holds search, Browse and your account.

Privacy and moderation

• You choose whether you appear in the pilot directory and whether your profile is public. Off means off, everywhere, including the app's contact matching.
• Blocking someone ends messaging in both directions.
• Everything posted passes an automated content filter, and anything can be reported to a moderator from the page it's on.
• Inviting from your phone's contacts never uploads your address book. The app checks a scrambled fingerprint of each email against members and stores nothing.

04 — Hiring and hired

How the job board works

Aviation hiring runs on who you know. The job board keeps that and adds structure: businesses post roles with their real requirements, and av8db ranks the members who fit — against their actual qualifications and hours, showing exactly why, never a black box.

How matching works

• Required licences and ratings are a hard filter: a pilot must hold them all to be a full match. When a role requires two or more, holding all but one shows them as a near match, listed separately; fewer than that, and they don't appear.
• Everything else — total and specialty hours, time on type, location, and preferred ratings — is scored, not gated, so a strong pilot who's light in one area still surfaces.
• The list is transparent: every match spells out exactly why the pilot fits, for the business to weigh itself.
• Posting is free, and the free plan shows the top 3 matches for each role with a summary; you can view their profiles and get in touch. The Recruiter plan shows every match, the near matches and the full reasons for each.
• Role alerts are on unless you turn them off in Settings: at most five a week, never the same role twice, and never for roles you've already applied to.
• Contact details stay private on both sides. Candidates apply on av8db; roles don't list an email address or phone number.
• Your profile can't be collected in bulk. A company page sees only so many different members a month through its matches and candidate search, on any plan; anyone browsing the directories, search or suggestions, or opening profiles, is shown only so many different members a day, however they change the search (your connections, and people you're talking to, always show); people who aren't signed in never see who's based at an airport or on a company's team; and nothing can be exported.
• A page's HR staff and recruiters show on its team, and the person who posted a role shows on it, so pilots know who they'd be talking to.

Open to new roles

• Pilots, student pilots and aviation professionals can turn on Open to new roles in Settings. It's off unless you turn it on, and you choose the kinds of role and add a line about what you're looking for.
• Only recruiters see it: never your current employer or anyone on its page, and it never shows on your profile. You also rank a little higher in the roles that match you.
• Recruiters on the Recruiter plan can search members who are open to new roles by licences, hours and where they're based, and message them without connecting first, up to a limited number of new people a week. If a page's plan ends, its recruiters can message someone again only once that person replies. They never see an email address or phone number, and you can block or report anyone.
• Search opens once 200 members are open to new roles, so recruiters always have someone to find.

05 — Uploading images

Recommended image sizes

Everything you upload is resized and re-compressed automatically — you don't have to prep anything. These are the sizes that come out sharpest, and what happens if a picture is a different shape.

Feed & review photos up to 1200 × 1200px

If it's a different size: Any shape, stored whole — a bigger image is scaled down, a smaller one is shown as-is. One photo runs edge to edge across the post, uncropped; two or more sit in square tiles, and a tap opens each one whole.

Max 10 MB · JPG, PNG, HEIC or WebP

Profile photo 400 × 400px

If it's a different size: Shown as a circle. A non-square upload is centre-cropped; below 400px it is upscaled and can look soft.

Max 5 MB

Profile banner 1500 × 375px

If it's a different size: A 4:1 strip across the top of your profile card, the same shape everywhere it appears. Any wider or taller photo works: drag it to choose the strip that shows, and reposition it later without uploading again.

Max 5 MB

Business banner 1600 × 400px

If it's a different size: A wide hero strip. Taller or square images are cropped to the strip, so keep the subject centred.

Max 8 MB

Business logo up to 400 × 400px

If it's a different size: Kept to its own shape and scaled down if larger. A transparent PNG keeps clean edges on any background.

Max 5 MB

06 — Who's here

Account types

Every account is a real person — the type just tailors what the platform gives you. Even a business account is a person: the owner or operator who runs the business.

Before you can use av8db, you set up your profile: your home airport, or the one nearest you, and for pilots and student pilots at least one certificate or rating. Aviation professionals say what they do, and can add the certificates for it. A photo and your first connections are optional. A network of pilots is only as useful as its members' profiles, so the feed, directories and messages open once that's done.

Pilot

Licensed pilots. Logbook, qualifications, endorsements and everything above.

Student pilot

Working towards a licence. Same as a pilot, and the natural place to find an instructor.

Aviation professional

People who work in aviation without flying: maintenance, cabin crew, dispatch, line service and ground, air traffic control, and office and management. A profile for the work you do, the certificates for it, and the roles that fit you.

Enthusiast

Aviation fans, family and friends of pilots. Follow the feed, review airports and businesses, join the community without a licence.

Business

A person who owns or runs an aviation business — a flight school, FBO, maintenance shop, dealer or charter operator. Like every account it's a real person; this one just adds the tools to manage the business's listing, jobs and fleet. Most owners simply claim their business from their pilot account; a dedicated business account is set up on request.