Author

Kim Vandry <vandry@TZoNE.ORG>

The wiflight module offers convenient access to Wi-Flight's REST API from Python. Wi-Flight is an automated solution for aircraft flight data monitoring which includes a flight data recorder that uploads via wifi, a server to receive and analyse the flight data, and web applications to browse recorded flights and play them back. For more information, visit our web page.

The Wi-Flight server offers a REST API for accessing various types of objects such as flights, aircraft, and reservations. All of the functionality needed for sophisticated applications such as the flight browser and the online flight playback tool is available through this API.

The Python interface to the API was created primarily not for use by such end-user applications as those mentioned above (which are written in Javascript) although it can be used for this. Its primary purpose is to facilitate server-to-server communications for integrating Wi-Flight with reservation and dispatch systems, aircraft maintenance systems, and the like. Examples of these types of integrations are:

• Reservation systems can populate crew information in Wi-Flight. Given crew information, Wi-Flight can offer access to flight playbacks restricted to those crew members who were on board and aircraft for each particular flight.
• An aircraft maintenance system can receive flight times (e.g. engine on time) from Wi-Flight after each flight, enabling it to automatically calculate when the aircraft becomes due for regular maintenance.