Six months of pgpilot
pgpilot, 2026-08-22
pgpilot has been out for six months now. It started as a "I can do this better in one week" project, but it has definitively taken a life of its own since then :D There have been 83 releases, 1500 flights, 1600 hours and almost 1000 registered users since we started. Not to mention all of you who have reached out with suggestions, tips and bugs! With a rainy summer in Norway, I've been living through your flights while coding up new features, and discussing what would be helpful next features.
What did we build
pgpilot has evolved into becoming a pretty feature rich companion, assisting you from planning (takeoffs, weather forecasts, live wind, ++), in flight (navigation map, thermal assistant, livetracking, ground contacts, airspaces, obstacles, glide range map overlay, easy app control over bluetooth buttons and voice agent, external varios, activelook glasses, ...), communication (both over internet "zello style" and over physical radios "old school" style), and after flight (flight analysis, replay flight, auto upload, ...).
What is next?
I have big plans for pgpilot, and every day I see more and more possibilities. In the near time you will see a long term weather forecast, a 3d visualisation (for replays and even live if we can make it useful), improved and data driven thermal assists, wind estimations, and other small AI algorithms that improve the flight assistance, and a lot of bug fixes and improvements to the app.
One thing I will have high on priority is to make the app simpler to start with: A flight companion requires a lot of features, but a new pilot to the app is (and rightfully so) quickly overwhelmed by everything. So I want to improve the "just work" component of the app, allowing you guys to iteratively discover more complexity as you get familiar with the app.
Keeping pgpilot airborne
pgpilot costs real money to run. Servers, map tiles, forecast data, the voice side, all of it adds up every month, and it has come out of my own pocket since February. Then it's all the hours I am not working at my normal, paid job... That is fine for a hobby, but it is not how something keeps getting better. I believe that for this app to become sustainable, it needs to have some income so the work keeps going when the initial hype is gone. And I think this is in everyone's interest.
So there is now a Supporter subscription. The important part: pgpilot stays genuinely usable for free, and I mean that. The vario, recording your flights, live tracking, the map, talking to your group, all of it stays free. The idea is to make it a small nudge to all my users to contribute to future app development, as well as covering cost driving parts of the app. That means I will have to put some existing free features behind the supporter subscription. What Supporters get is the deeper end of it: the full forecast, the assistant, unlimited offline maps, and more room in comms.
Since you are my early adopters I do want to give a good intro to all of you: I have made it free for two weeks, and a lower early supporter price if you support before 31 January. I hope you will use it not just for the features, but also to help make pgpilot a viable product!
Those of you who have supported with the old system without expecting anything back will be upgraded for free until the end of January, thank you <3
If you would rather not pay, please do not feel any pressure. You flying with it and telling me when it breaks is worth a lot on its own. And if there is anything on your mind - features, what works, what should be different - write me at hello@pgpilot.app. I am all ears and answer everything!
Thanks for six months of this. It has been great fun building with you!
Blue skies and happy flying, Simen