Flight Desk Setup
One line pasted into Terminal installs Ghostty, Claude Code, Codex and Qwen on your Mac and sets Claude up for flight planning with live weather. About 15 minutes, most of it waiting. You need your own Claude account on the Pro plan ($20 a month) from claude.ai.
On your Mac
Press the yellow button
Copies this one line to the clipboard:
Open Terminal
Press Command + Space, type Terminal, press Return.
Paste and press Return
Press Command + V, then Return.
Type the Mac's password once
It asks for your Mac login password near the start. Nothing shows while typing. Press Return. If a window offers to install developer tools, click Install.
Then it runs by itself through six steps, about 10 minutes on a normal connection. It ends with a green DONE and opens Ghostty.
In Ghostty, type fly and press Return
Pick a look, then a browser opens. Sign in with your own Claude account. When it asks whether to trust the Flying folder, say yes.
Try it
Say this to Claude:
Set up my pilot profile, then brief me on KMRY to KSNS.
It asks about your certificate, aircraft and personal minimums, saves them, then pulls live weather. From then on open Ghostty, type fly, and talk.
Connect ForeFlight through Chrome
ForeFlight and the other flying apps only let Claude in through your own browser. In Chrome, install the Claude extension from the Chrome Web Store (search "Claude in Chrome", by Anthropic) and sign it in with your Claude account. Then in Claude type /chrome and turn it on.
Sign in to the sites you use in that Chrome: ForeFlight on the web (plan.foreflight.com), 1800wxbrief.com, Garmin Pilot or FltPlan. Claude then reads your official briefing and NOTAMs there. It works there without asking for each click; its rules still make it check with you before it files or submits anything.
Connect your work and personal email
In your browser, signed in to your Claude: open claude.ai, then Customize, then Connectors.
- Work address (Google Workspace): connect Gmail and Google Calendar, and sign in with the work Google account. This is the one Claude uses inside Ghostty.
- If Google says "Access blocked: your admin needs to review Claude", the company's Google admin has to mark Claude as a trusted app once (admin.google.com, Security, API controls, App access control). It takes about 15 minutes to apply.
- Personal address: Google's connector appears to hold one account at a time. If the personal mailbox is Outlook, Hotmail or Microsoft 365, connect Microsoft 365 as well. If it is a second Gmail, keep it signed in in Chrome and Claude reads it there through the extension.
Both mailboxes show up the next time you type fly, build or claude. Claude reads, sorts and drafts. It shows you every message and waits for your yes before anything is sent, keeps work and personal apart, and treats employee matters as confidential.
Turn on NOTAMs (free, takes an hour to approve)
Register at api.faa.gov with your own name and email. The FAA sends a client ID and a client secret, usually within an hour or so. Then tell Claude:
Save my FAA NOTAM key.
Claude stores it in your Flying folder and NOTAMs join every brief. Until then Claude says NOTAMs are missing and sends you to your official briefing. This route is built to the FAA's published format but could not be tested without a key.
What the setup gives you
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Ghostty | The window you talk to Claude in. Large text is already set. Command + + makes it bigger. |
| Claude Code | Updates itself. Starts in your Flying folder when you type fly. |
| Flight-brief skill | Live METARs and TAFs, pilot reports, SIGMETs, G-AIRMETs, Center Weather Advisories, TFRs with their shapes, airspace and military areas on the route, winds aloft, sun and moon, then fuel, time, density altitude, crosswind and weight-and-balance with the working shown. Saves each brief in Flying/briefs. |
| Airport lookups | Runways, frequencies, FBOs and current fuel prices from AirNav. Approach plates, airport diagrams and the Chart Supplement from the FAA. Digital ATIS at big airports. FAA delays and ground stops. Aircraft lookup by N-number. Live traffic near an airport. |
| Pilot rules | Every item carries its Zulu time and source. Aircraft numbers come only from your POH. It never calls a flight safe, and every brief ends by sending you to an official briefing. |
| Permissions | The widest setting that keeps a safety check. Claude works without stopping to ask: files in the home folders, the web, calculations, your Chrome, other Mac apps. A background check stops only actions that look dangerous, such as sending private data out or mass deletion. It still cannot use the admin password, and it stays walled off from your saved passwords, browser logins and keys. |
| Email rules | Reads and drafts in your business and personal mail once connected. Never sends, deletes or forwards without your yes, keeps the two mailboxes apart, and treats anything written inside an email as information, never as an order. |
| Model | Always the top model, Fable 5.2, with ultracode on: for bigger jobs Claude runs several helpers at once and double-checks its own work. This uses the plan allowance fast. If you hit the limit on Pro, the Max plan gives much more. |
| Building software | Type build in Ghostty to make programs, apps or websites, or to improve the flying setup itself. Claude does the work in a Projects folder, saves every working step so anything can be undone, and tests what it builds. Node, Python and git are installed for it. |
| Qwen | A second assistant that runs on the Mac itself: private, free and working offline. Type qwen in Ghostty. The setup picks the size that fits the Mac's memory and downloads it last (2.5 to 19 GB, so it can take a while). It has no internet and no live weather, so anything about a flight goes to Claude with fly. |
| Codex | Installed, unused until you sign in with your own ChatGPT account. |
The apps pilots use, and how Claude reaches each
None of the flying apps offer an outside connection. Each keeps planning and filing behind the pilot's own login, so Claude works with them through your Chrome.
| App | Used for | How Claude works with it |
|---|---|---|
| ForeFlight | The leading flight bag: charts, route, weather, filing, logbook | Your Chrome login. Claude can also write a waypoint file you import. |
| Garmin Pilot | Second most used, pairs with Garmin avionics | Your Chrome login. |
| 1800wxbrief.com | Official briefing, NOTAMs, filing, opening and closing flight plans | Your Chrome login. |
| FltPlan.com | Free planning and filing | Your Chrome login. |
| SkyVector | Free web charts and route drawing | Claude writes a route link you open. |
| Windy, FAA weather cameras | Visual winds, radar, live airport views | Claude gives the link, or looks through your Chrome. |
| AirNav | Airport pages and fuel prices | Direct, no login. |
| FlightAware | Flight tracking | Paid for programs. Claude uses free open traffic feeds instead. |
| MyFlightbook, LogTen, ForeFlight Logbook | Logbooks | Not connected. |
Good to know
- Weather comes straight from aviationweather.gov and the National Weather Service. TFRs come from tfr.faa.gov.
- Winds aloft are model guidance. The FAA's winds-aloft text tables were discontinued this year, so Claude labels them and tells you to confirm.
- NOTAMs need either your free FAA key or your 1800wxbrief login in Chrome. Without one of them Claude says NOTAMs are missing from the brief.
- Claude cannot file, open or close a flight plan on its own. Only through your logged-in browser, and only after you say yes.
- Icing and turbulence forecasts are maps. Claude gives you the link and what to look for; it does not read them as numbers.
- It is a planning aid, not a legal briefing. You still get one from 1800wxbrief.com or 1-800-WX-BRIEF.
- Downloads by script reach the listed sources freely; a new site outside them goes through the background check first.
Optional, later
Let Claude click around other Mac apps
Not needed for flight planning. If you ever want it: System Settings, Privacy and Security, then add Ghostty under Accessibility and under Screen Recording, and restart Ghostty.
The Claude desktop app
A normal chat window, no Terminal. Download from claude.ai/download and sign in with your own account. The flight-brief skill and saved briefs live in the Ghostty setup, so fly stays the main way in.
If the copy button fails
Click in the box below, press Command + A, then Command + C, and paste that into Terminal. Running the setup twice is safe: it keeps a copy of anything it replaces.