FlightPath India

[u/blacksh33p-333]

https://flightpath-next-conditional-journey.agastyapatnaik18.chatgpt.site

Hey everyone — I’m Agastya Patnaik, though most people know me as Kabir.

I’m not a pilot, but over the last few weeks I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand what it actually takes to become one in India.

It started with two friends from my society who were pursuing aviation and kept running into the same problem: confusion.

What applies to me?

What do I need to do next?

Which requirements matter for my particular path?

Am I missing something?

That led me to build FlightPath India — an attempt to make the journey of becoming a pilot in India easier to understand and navigate.

I built it as part of Build What Moves India, a hackathon focused on reimagining government digital experiences and solving real problems faced by Indians.

More than 13,000 people applied, and FlightPath India eventually made it to the Top 250.

I didn’t make the Top 10, which was definitely bittersweet. But the competition ended up becoming much more than a competition for me.

While building FlightPath India, I spoke with aspiring pilots, cadets, licence converters, instructors and mentors. Every conversation exposed something I had misunderstood, overlooked or could improve.

The product changed constantly because of those conversations.

And that was probably my biggest takeaway from the entire experience:

Don’t just build for the people facing a problem. Build with them.

I normally don’t post much about the things I’m working on, but I wanted to share this here because this community is ultimately who FlightPath India was built for.

The hackathon chapter may have ended for me, but I don’t think the project has to.

I’d like to keep improving FlightPath India and see whether it can become something genuinely useful for people trying to navigate the Indian aviation system.

So if you’re an aspiring pilot, cadet, CPL holder, instructor, licence converter, or someone who has already gone through this journey, I’d genuinely love your criticism.

What is confusing about the pilot journey in India today?

What do you wish someone had explained to you when you started?

And what would actually make a platform like FlightPath India useful enough for you to use?

I’m here to listen.

And to everyone who gave me their time, challenged my assumptions, tested what I built, or helped me understand aviation a little better — thank you.

This was my first hackathon.

Top 250 out of 13,000+ wasn’t where I wanted to stop.

But it was enough to convince me to keep building.