MCP Server for Flying Clubs and Aircraft Partnerships
Pilot-Next runs a remote MCP server. Connect Claude, ChatGPT or any other MCP-aware assistant to your club and ask it to find a free slot, book the aircraft, close out the flight, or tell you when the annual is due — in plain language, with the same permissions your own account has.
What is the Pilot-Next MCP server?
The Pilot-Next MCP server is a remote Model Context Protocol server at https://pilot-next-backend.onrender.com/mcp that gives an AI assistant direct access to a flying club or aircraft partnership running on Pilot-Next.
It exposes 17 aviation tools — booking, availability, Hobbs and Tacho hours, flight settlement, account balance, maintenance forecasts and METAR — over Streamable HTTP, behind OAuth 2.1. There is nothing to install: it is a hosted server, not a package you run on your laptop.
The Model Context Protocol is an open standard, originally published by Anthropic, for connecting AI assistants to external tools and data. Instead of a bespoke integration per assistant, one MCP server serves them all.
Connection details
| Server URL | https://pilot-next-backend.onrender.com/mcp |
|---|---|
| Transport | Streamable HTTP (remote). Legacy HTTP+SSE clients are served at /mcp/sse and /mcp/messages. |
| Authentication | OAuth 2.1 with PKCE and dynamic client registration (RFC 7591). Bearer token in the Authorization header. |
| Discovery | /.well-known/oauth-authorization-server and /.well-known/oauth-protected-resource |
| Scope | mcp |
| Tools | 17 (3 write, 14 read-only) |
| Install step | None. It is a remote server — there is nothing to download, clone or run locally. |
Values read from the server's own discovery document on 9 September 2026.
Listed in the official MCP Registry as com.pilot-next/pilot-next, and on Smithery.
Which tools does the Pilot-Next MCP server expose?
Seventeen, in four groups. Fourteen are read-only. Only three change anything a pilot would notice — create_booking, cancel_booking and settle_booking. Creating and cancelling go through the same booking service as the web app, and settling through the same flight-log service: it settles only your own confirmed booking, once, and checks that the meter readings add up.
| Tool | Read / write | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Booking & scheduling | ||
get_my_bookings | Read | Upcoming and past bookings for the signed-in pilot. |
find_available_slots | Read | Free windows for an aircraft over a date range — "when is the Cessna free next Friday morning?" |
get_aircraft_availability | Read | Confirmed bookings on one aircraft, or on the whole fleet, in a date range. |
create_booking | Write | Reserve an aircraft for a time window, with the web app’s conflict checks plus a check on the hours left before the next hour-based inspection. |
cancel_booking | Write | Release a booking you own. |
| Aircraft & maintenance | ||
get_aircraft_hours | Read | Current Hobbs and Tacho readings on the airframe. |
get_maintenance_forecast | Read | When the next 100-hour, annual or recurring inspection falls due, in hours and in days. |
get_flight_statistics | Read | Your own flight hours per month over the last 12 months, for all aircraft or one. |
get_pilot_activity | Read | Total hours flown by you or a named club member over the last 12 months. |
| Money & settlement | ||
get_my_balance | Read | Current account balance. |
estimate_flight_cost | Read | Pre-flight cost estimate from the aircraft rate that applies to you. |
get_unsettled_bookings | Read | Your bookings that have started and are not yet settled. |
preview_settlement | Read | Full cost breakdown for a flight before anything is charged. |
settle_booking | Write | Close out a flight end to end: log the hours, price them, book the invoice line. |
get_booking_settlement_info | Read | The recorded start readings (Hobbs/Tacho) and the available manual rates for a flight you are about to settle. |
| Flight context | ||
get_weather | Read | METAR and TAF for any reporting station. |
get_dispatch_context_and_time | Read | Current time, time zone and dispatch context, so the assistant does not guess at "next Friday". |
How do I connect Claude to my flying club booking system?
Connecting Claude, or any other MCP-aware assistant, to Pilot-Next takes four steps, once:
- In your assistant, add a custom connector and paste the server URL
https://pilot-next-backend.onrender.com/mcp. - Sign in to Pilot-Next in the browser window that opens.
- Approve the connection. The client registers itself, so there is no client ID or secret to copy.
- Ask it something — “when is the Cessna free for three hours on Friday morning?”
You need a Pilot-Next account for the club whose data you want to reach. The assistant works inside your own club and with your own account — it cannot reach another club's aircraft, or anyone's balance but yours.
One question, three tool calls
Pilot
“Book the Cessna for three hours on Friday morning.”
Assistant → server
get_dispatch_context_and_timeToday’s date, your time zone, the active fleet and your default aircraft.
Returns a token the booking tools ask for, so the assistant reads today’s date before it books.
Assistant → server
find_available_slotsFree windows for that aircraft on that Friday morning.
Assistant → server
create_bookingRefused if it overlaps a confirmed booking.
Refused if the estimated flight hours exceed the hours left on an hour-based inspection (a calendar due date is not checked).
Assistant
Reports the booking — the same booking the club sees in the app, confirmed or, where the club requires approval, waiting for it.
Is it safe to let an AI assistant reach my club aircraft data?
Every MCP call is tied to your own Pilot-Next account and your own club. A pilot changes only their own bookings and sees only their own balance; like the schedule in the app, the assistant shows who has booked an aircraft, and it can look up the hours a fellow member has flown. An administrator sees their own company and no other.
The Bearer token is separate from the web session and stops working the moment you disconnect the assistant in your Pilot-Next settings. Fourteen of the seventeen tools cannot change anything at all, and a settlement can be inspected with preview_settlement before a cent is booked.
More questions
How can a flying club use an AI assistant day to day?
With the Pilot-Next MCP server connected, the assistant answers from the club’s own data instead of guessing. A member can ask when the Cessna is free for three hours on Friday and book it (find_available_slots, create_booking), what a two-hour flight will cost at the rate that applies to them (estimate_flight_cost), what their balance is (get_my_balance), and close out the flight afterwards from the meter readings after checking the cost breakdown (preview_settlement, settle_booking). Before a cross-country it can fetch the METAR and TAF (get_weather), and anyone can ask when the next 100-hour or annual inspection falls due (get_maintenance_forecast). The assistant can only do what these tools allow, as the member it is connected for; the maintenance forecast is arithmetic on the aircraft’s meter readings and bookings, not a prediction model.
Which AI assistants work with the Pilot-Next MCP server?
Any client that speaks the Model Context Protocol over Streamable HTTP and supports OAuth 2.1 remote servers. That includes Claude (desktop and web), and other MCP-aware clients and agent frameworks. Older clients that only speak HTTP+SSE are served on the legacy endpoints /mcp/sse and /mcp/messages.
Can I build my own integration on the Pilot-Next MCP server?
Yes. The protocol is open and the endpoint is the same one our own clients use — a Slack bot for a syndicate, a cockpit voice assistant or a month-end settlement script all connect the same way. The tool names and behaviour on this page are the contract.
Does the MCP server replace the Pilot-Next app?
No. It is a second way in, not a second system. The same bookings, invoices and maintenance records are behind it, so a flight booked by an assistant appears in the web app immediately, and a flight settled in the web app is gone from get_unsettled_bookings straight away.
New to Pilot-Next? Start with the aircraft partnership and flying club platform itself, read the longer write-up in Introducing MCP: talk to Pilot-Next from Claude, see how a booking becomes an invoice in aircraft scheduling software, from booking to billing, or see how the platform compares in 12 flying club management tools with verified pricing.