Real-Time SaaSReal-Time & Frontend Architecture Consultant2024

Flight School Tracker

Brought in as a specialized consultant to augment a comprehensive aviation management platform. My objective: architect and build the two most critical real-time interfaces from scratch - the multi-aircraft scheduling timeline and the live flight telemetry tracking.

Flight School Tracker
DEMO
Wednesday, Sep 4, 2024
08:0009:0010:0011:0012:0013:0014:0015:0016:00
I-AMAT
TRAINING
I-BFLY
SOLO
I-CFLY
NAV
I-DMAT
FERRY
I-EMAT
MAINT
Book A Flight
Start BriefingSep 4 - 13:00
Start FlightSep 4 - 13:30
End FlightSep 4 - 14:30
AircraftI-AMAT
Flight Type
S1 - PPL FASE PRE SOLO
S2 - PPL FASE POST SOLO
SOLO - PPL SOLO FLIGHT
C1 - CPL/A FASE BIPOSTO
N1 - NR NIGHT RATING DUAL
B1 - IR BASICO SE/ME FASE SIM
A1 - IR ADVANCED SE/ME FASE SIM
J1 - FI FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR
VFR
IFR

Illustrative reconstruction of the scheduling interface I built (sample data, client UI under NDA).

The Challenge

The system had to coordinate multiple aircraft, instructors and flight types on an interactive timeline in real time, while receiving live telemetry from aircraft in flight.

Multi-Aircraft Timeline

Interactive React calendar to manage overlapping reservations, instructors and maintenance across the whole fleet at once, on parallel time lanes.

WebSockets & MQTT

Real-time data ingestion pipeline to receive live telemetry bursts (altitude, heading, flight phase) and update the UI instantly, with no page reloads.

React Performance

Memoization and virtualization to keep the interfaces fluid under heavy real-time event loads, even with many aircraft active at once.

01
The Story

The hardest call was the scheduling timeline: off-the-shelf calendars buckle when you need many parallel aircraft lanes with overlapping bookings, so I deeply customized react-calendar-timeline rather than rebuilding from scratch - keeping delivery fast while bending it to the fleet's real constraints. For the live tracking, the goal was a UI that stays truthful under bursts of MQTT/WebSocket telemetry: I drove flight-phase state straight from the stream and tuned React rendering (memoization, virtualization) so it stayed smooth with many aircraft updating at once.

Consulting Role

Brought in specifically for the two most critical, technically complex modules - not as a full-time developer, but as a specialized architect for the features that demanded advanced real-time and complex calendaring expertise.

Architecture ConsultingReal-Time SystemsReact Expert

Key Contributions

01

Customized react-calendar-timeline into a multi-lane scheduler: overlapping bookings, per-aircraft rows, instructors and maintenance windows on parallel timelines.

02

Built the MQTT/WebSocket ingestion that drives flight-phase state on the client, so the UI reflects what each aircraft is actually doing in real time.

03

Tuned React for sustained real-time load (memoization and virtualization) to keep the timeline and tracking views fluid with many aircraft updating at once.

04

Advised the lead freelancer on architecture and reviewed code to keep the system scalable.

The Impact

Replaced a manual, double-booking-prone reservation process with a real-time timeline that coordinates the whole fleet, instructors and flight types at a glance - paired with a tracking module that reflects each aircraft's flight phase as it happens.

Get in Touch

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Let's Discuss Your Project

Pick a time that works for you. We'll hop on a 30-minute discovery call to discuss your goals. There's absolutely zero obligation, and you'll receive free technical guidance regardless.