EFB and Debriefing Software Providers Unite

Boeing subsidiary ForeFlight, the Houston-based producer of market-leading Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) products, announced on 05 April 2023 that it had acquired CloudAhoy, a provider of post-flight debriefing, analytics, and flight operations quality assurance (FOQA) software products at once germane to flight training, business aviation, general aviation, and military aviation operations.

ForeFlight’s brass asserts the deal strengthens the company’s data analytics tools and services—the lot of which provide a seamless digital ecosystem across all phases of flight.

ForeFlight CEO Tim Schuetze stated: “CloudAhoy’s advanced capabilities and products will complement and integrate nicely into our existing digital portfolio, and we are excited for CloudAhoy and its employees to join our team. Recording and debriefing flights has been a staple of ForeFlight for years, and CloudAhoy’s software will enable even deeper post-flight analysis of every flight.”

ForeFlight’s popular Track Log feature currently supports the export of recorded flights that such may be viewed in third party apps—such as CloudAhoy. Furthermore, ForeFlight’s award-winning Sentry and Sentry Plus ADS-B receivers record additional flight metrics, such as attitude and g-load, thereby providing CloudAhoy comprehensive data conducive to more informative postflight analysis.

CloudAhoy CEO Chuck Shavit remarked: “We are excited to become part of ForeFlight and Boeing, and for the opportunity to have a growing impact on aviation safety. We have known the ForeFlight team for many years and share a passion for aviation and the customer.”

ForeFlight’s offerings are part of Boeing Global Services’ digital solutions business. The acquisition of CloudAhoy instantiates Boeing’s larger strategy to continue building capabilities supportive of both extant and future customer needs. So stated Brad Surak, vice-president of Boeing Global Services Digital Aviation Solutions.

Mr. Surak set forth: “These new capabilities, in combination with existing offerings across Global Services’ digital and training businesses, highlight our commitment to providing innovative solutions that improve pilot training and enhance safety. We will continue to strategically invest in capabilities that we believe will strengthen our digital solutions portfolio to ensure we continue to meet the needs of our customers.”

ForeFlight and CloudAhoy have yet to disclose the transaction’s terms.

ForeFlight was founded in 2007, following general aviation pilots Tyson Weihs’s and Jason Miller’s joint development of a weather planning service compatible with Apple’s first generation iPhone. As subsequent, more powerful iPhone models were developed, Weihs and Miller expanded their product’s capabilities to include flight planning. The 2010 release of Apple’s iPad saw Weihs and Miller enhance their software to include IFR and VFR chart overlays and numerous additional features.

In 2016, ForeFlight teamed with Boeing-owned Jeppesen to incorporate the latter company’s terminal and enroute charts as an option in the ForeFlight suite.

In 2023, ForeFlight integrates weather and preflight planning features with a moving map, overlays, and a variety of additional resources alternately appropriate to GA, business aviation, airline, and military flight operations. In addition to its mobile app for Apple iOS products, ForeFlight offers a free online flight planner compatible with the app.

ForeFlight has cultivated admirable reputations for customer service and innovation, with app updates being released over spans of weeks.

FMI: www.foreflight.com