GlideLoop: the shuttle app that replaces WhatsApp chaos at the flying site

Any pilot knows the routine. The thermal starts working on the hill, the first wings are already climbing, and the club’s WhatsApp group erupts with overlapping messages: “Leaving at twelve?”, “Wait five minutes”, “Any room in the van?” The driver pulls away unsure of how many people are actually coming, and at least one pilot watches the dust trail vanish while the day’s best lift slips away.

GlideLoop is built to kill that friction. Conceived by Italian pilot Stefano Madeddu, it is a tool aimed squarely at organising the flow of vans, clubs, schools and commercial operators at flying sites — and it deliberately skips the app stores. It runs as a mobile web app straight from the browser, so there is nothing to install at the landing field, and it already speaks ten languages.

The platform digitises the departure board so locals and visitors can grab a seat in seconds, making sure every vehicle heads up with the right number of passengers. It handles two shuttle styles: a Scheduled mode with fixed departures and a minimum headcount for quiet midweek flying, and a Free Flow mode where the van simply fills and goes — ideal for busy weekends and ridge-soaring sites. Pilots can even book a seat for a rucksack on a hike-and-fly day, add a tandem passenger, or ping a retrieve with exact coordinates after landing out.

A neat touch is the direct link to the Paragliding Earth database, with more than 10,700 take-offs catalogued worldwide. Travelling pilots can open the map, see which local operators are running vans, and secure a seat before they even arrive. On the operations side, clubs set prices and vehicles while drivers manage the live passenger list, with phone numbers hidden to satisfy GDPR.

For pilots it is free; clubs and operators get 200 shuttle runs a year at no cost, with paid plans beyond that. A built-in Algodonales demo club lets you test the booking flow on simulated routes before going live.

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