Zulu Sierra
ZS · South Africa · Building in the open

Your hours. Proven, and in front of the right people.

A logbook that adds up. A pilot profile a flying company can actually read. And a way to split the cost of an aircraft with another pilot who needs the same hours you do.

Join the waitlist See how it works

For the pilot who has a licence, needs a few hundred hours, and is paying for every one of them. Not open yet — we're letting people in a handful at a time.

The arithmetic

A South African PPL holder needs 200 hours total and 100 as pilot in command for a commercial licence. At what a wet Cessna 172 costs an hour, the gap between a fresh PPL and a CPL is the price of a car.

You can't change the hourly rate. You can change how many people are paying it. Two pilots, one aircraft, two legs — you each fly one as pilot in command and each pay for one. That's the whole idea, and the rest of Zulu Sierra exists to make those hours count for something afterwards.

How it works

The screenshots below are the real application, running. Nothing here is a mock-up.

01 Log it

Every flight with the columns a logbook actually has — PIC, dual, night, instrument, cross-country, landings. Your paper hours go in once as an opening balance, so the totals are your real totals from the first day.

A pilot's progress page showing total and PIC hours against the CPL targets

02 Share the cost

Say what hours you need, which types you're checked out on, which fields you can fly from and when you're free. A person at Zulu Sierra reads every request and pairs you by hand. No algorithm puts you in an aircraft with a stranger on its own.

The hour-share screen showing the acting pilot in command agreement between two pilots

That middle panel is the part everyone gets wrong — see below.

03 Be findable

One profile page: licence, medical, ratings by type, hours by category, and the flights another pilot has countersigned. Flying companies search it by hours, type rating and home field. You decide whether you're visible.

A flying company searching the pilot directory by hours, licence and type rating

The part everyone gets wrong

Two pilots in one aircraft can both end up with loggable time — but only if they settle beforehand who is the acting pilot in command for each leg. Without that agreement, the pilot in the other seat is logging SIC, not PIC.

So Zulu Sierra won't let either of you log the flight until you've both put your name to that split, and then it caps each pilot's PIC time at their own legs. Try to claim more and the app refuses, in those words. It's a step in the product, not a line in the terms.

What's built, and what isn't

We'd rather you knew now than found out later.

CapabilityStatus
Logbook with full column breakdown and running totalsWorking
Partner countersigns a shared flight; the entry then locksWorking
Public pilot profile with ratings by typeWorking
Hour-share requests, brokered matching, in-app chatWorking
Acting-PIC agreement enforced before loggingWorking
Company search, shortlists, positions and applicationsWorking
Licence and medical checked by a person, by handManual
Direct verification against the SACAA registerNot built
Payments and cost settlement between pilotsNot built
Phone appsNot built
About the hour figures. The CPL(A) targets in the app are the headline totals — 200 hours, 100 PIC — from SACAA form CA 61-05a. The full aeronautical experience table, and the authority's position on logging simultaneous PIC on a safety-pilot flight, still need confirming with the SACAA. We show this warning everywhere a number appears, on purpose. Nothing here replaces your logbook, your instructor or the regulator.

Pilots we've spoken to so far: a number we intend to change this month. If you join the list and tell us what you actually need, you are one of them.

Join the waitlist

We're opening it a handful of pilots at a time, starting in the Gauteng cluster — Grand Central, Rand, Wonderboom, Lanseria, Krugersdorp, Baragwanath. Tell us where you fly and we'll come to you in order.

We store your name, email and what you tell us above, so we can contact you about the launch. Nothing else, no licence numbers, nothing shared with anyone. Ask us and we delete it. info@zulusierra.co.za