blueskyapplications.com

What It Is

5-by-5 is Aircraft Ownership & Management Software from Blue Sky Applications, aimed at individual aircraft owners, co-owners, and flying clubs. It brings flight logs, maintenance, airworthiness directives, scheduling, squawk reports, expenses, and web analytics into a single app. The product is clearly built for general aviation, with much of its messaging framed around U.S. aviation operations such as the FAA, A&P mechanics, and ADs.

Core Features

For individual aircraft owners, the core features include flight logging, tach time continuity management, maintenance-due reminders, automatic FAA AD imports, component life and oil analysis tracking, and day/night/IFR currency status based on 14 CFR 61. Squawk reports support severity levels, photos, resolution history, and links to maintenance records. The document library includes 130+ aircraft, engine, and accessory manuals. The paid Web Dashboard adds flight trends, FlightAware tracks, cash flow, expense planning, maintenance trends, and CSV export.

Collaboration, Permissions, and Integrations

The Club version adds a shared scheduling calendar, member collaboration, and per-member billing. The paid Club plan supports Owner/Admin/Member roles and can sync bookings to Google and Outlook. A&P mechanics can access maintenance and squawk information through a dedicated role; they do not count as paid seats and cannot access scheduling, billing, or owner data. Disclosed integrations include FAA AD, METAR, mobile calendars, Google/Outlook, FlightAware, bank account integration, and Stripe payments.

Pricing

Pricing is transparent and includes a permanently free tier. Solo Free costs $0 and includes basic flight logging, weather, squawks, and up to 5 maintenance items. Solo costs $9.99/month or $99/year. Club Free is for up to 2 members and 1 aircraft. Club costs $6.99/member/month, or about $4.99/member/month when billed annually. The multi-aircraft Club Pro plan has not launched yet, and pricing has not been announced.

Pros, Cons, and Who It’s For

Strengths include a strong vertical focus, a generous free tier, detailed maintenance and regulatory features, and a practical design for mechanic collaboration. Limitations include a lack of disclosed information on security compliance, data hosting, APIs, and audit capabilities, while multi-aircraft fleet support is still on the roadmap. The product is also heavily oriented toward the U.S. FAA framework. It is best suited to individual aircraft owners, small ownership partnerships, and single-aircraft flying clubs. It is less suitable for organizations that need complex fleet management, enterprise IT governance, or localized regulatory support.

Access from China

The main content does not provide information on network accessibility from mainland China, RMB payments, or local support. Payments are only explicitly stated as using Stripe. Chinese users may need to evaluate network connectivity, international card payments, FAA rule compatibility, and alternatives. Comparable options include Flight Circle and CoFlyt, or a combination of local scheduling and maintenance log systems.