bern444, I'll be interested in your results. FWIW you might like to check out
www.openflyers.org who have a similar system to what you're describing and which is already working with a number of additional features - it's PHP/MySQL based.
I've been doing some work with it and have implemented a system to replace a paper operation with excellent results. It took a few days for the dust to settle and quite a bit of customising the scripts/pages etc but after several months I don't think they'd go back. There is no longer a queue or search for the diary and most certainly no need for rubbers or twink so things are somewhat tidier
In this instance I've used an Ubuntu server with Windows client machines but openflyers also offer a hosted setup for those who don't want to mess with the backend. That said as it's an opensource project there's plenty of options to mess with it if you want! I've done so and contributed back to the project some of my changes so everyone benefits
