An SMS that makes sense for one aircraft

Yes, this applies to you

The FAA's 2024 final rule extends 14 CFR Part 5 to all certificate holders operating under Part 135. There is no threshold for fleet size, headcount or revenue. Single-aircraft and single-pilot operations are in scope and must submit a Declaration of Compliance by 28 May 2027.

What the rule does allow is scale. Part 5 requires the system to be appropriate to the size and complexity of your operation. A one-aircraft operator is not expected to produce the documentation set of a regional airline — but is expected to have a functioning safety policy, a way to identify and assess hazards, a way to verify the controls work, and a way to communicate safety information.

The genuinely hard part: you are every role at once

In a small operation the accountable executive, the safety manager and the reporter are frequently the same person. That creates three real problems that most SMS software, built for departments, does not acknowledge:

• There is no one to report to. Reporting a hazard to yourself feels like paperwork rather than safety. The value only appears later, when a pattern emerges across months of small entries you would otherwise never have written down.
• There is no one to chase you. A control you applied in March needs verifying in June. Nobody is going to remind you.
• Every minute on admin is a minute not flying. A system that takes an hour a week will be abandoned by month three, and an abandoned SMS is worse than none at all when the FAA looks at your records.

The Sole Operator plan

$99 per month for a streamlined interface built for operations where one person wears every hat: the full Part 5 framework, the standard FAA 5×5 risk matrix, hazard reporting, onboarding assistance, and 5GB of document storage. It is not a stripped-down tier that cannot make you compliant — it is the same framework with the multi-role machinery out of the way.

For context, a consultant-led implementation typically runs fifteen to fifty thousand dollars. At $99 a month you would need to run for more than twelve years to reach the bottom of that range. See all plans.

What you still have to do yourself

Software does not make you compliant. You still have to designate an accountable executive — in a single-pilot operation that is almost certainly you, and it needs documenting with a designation date. You still have to actually file reports, make risk decisions, and keep the system running. What this removes is the record-keeping burden and the remembering.

Start with the four pillars and twelve elements if you want to understand the shape of the obligation before you look at tools.