Enabling the Largest Audience of Drone Operators With a New Situational Awareness Sharing Tool
To further Aloft’s mission to connect airspace operators with the National Airspace System (NAS), we’re launching new “Notify & Fly” capabilities to enable drone pilots across recreational, commercial, and government/first responders to share their flight activity with the largest network of airspace operators for the highest level of situational awareness ever achieved across drone operations.
Simply visit https://b4ufly.aloft.ai/ to file your first Notify & Fly flight.
When we first launched our data crowdsourcing initiative at the end of last year, we’ve received hundreds of submissions from government agencies about restrictions they’d like to see on the official airspace maps on B4UFLY and Aloft — and we’re still taking those submissions here. But overwhelmingly, across thousands of submissions, were drone pilots sharing their intent to fly. Not from some government mandate or regulation, but a very pilot-like desire to share flight and increase collective airspace safety.
The concept of Notify & Fly functionality was also a recommendation at the June 2021 Drone Advisory Committee meeting and Aloft couldn’t agree more about the effectiveness of this based on actual user data. As the #1 USS, powering over half of all LAANC authorizations and connecting the largest network of drone operations, Aloft is proud to bring new levels of airspace safety to the NAS, and here’s how to use it.
How to Use Notify & Fly
1. Notify & Fly sharing is available across all uncontrolled airspace (ie, 99% of the airspace). In controlled airspace, you’ll still want to use LAANC. Launching first on B4UFLY web (with mobile arriving soon for Android and iOS), simply navigate to where you intend to fly and click “Notify & Fly”.
2. After clicking on Notify & Fly, simply select your type of flight (recreational, commercial, or government/first responder), and we’ll populate an active flight volume across for all to see on B4UFLY. To note, as part of this beta release the duration of your flight is set to 60 minutes automatically. During this time if your operations extend past 60 minutes, you will need to submit an additional notify & fly for the remainder of your flight.
3. A flight volume (four-dimensional time and space) will show across B4UFLY for all to see and share in the collective situational awareness of new drone flights active in the area.
Following this initial N&F beta launch on the web, we’re preparing for a full rollout across B4UFLY mobile apps in the coming weeks. Today is the beginning of a new collective airspace where the largest users of the airspace — drone pilots — not only take to the skies but also share their intent for the benefit of all pilots sharing the NAS.
Remember, B4UFLY, Notify & Fly.
Thanks for flying Aloft,
Jon
P.S. We are looking for user feedback for Notify & Fly , please email your comments at b4ufly@aloft.ai.
#NandF
Jon Hegranes - Aloft CEO
Jon is the Founder & CEO of Aloft, the market leader in drone airspace systems & UTM technologies. Aloft’s patented technology is used in today’s leading recreational, enterprise, and government drone applications.
Jon is a certified commercial drone pilot as part of FAA Part 107, the founder of the Drone Advisory Council, and is an active member of other industry groups, including GUTMA, NBAA Emerging Tech, the FAA’s Advanced Aviation Advisory Committee (AAAC) and working groups, and is a founding member and data working group chair of the FAA Drone Safety Team. He’s a self-taught iOS developer, writes about drone topics for technology news outlets including VentureBeat, TechCrunch, and Forbes, and regularly speaks at industry events such as Commercial UAV Expo, 2B Ahead Future Congress, and DJI AirWorks. Jon graduated from TCU with a major in finance and received his MBA from Thunderbird Global School of Management (ASU). Jon has served on multiple FAA Advisory and Rulemaking Committees (ARCs), including drone detection, counter UAS, and Beyond Visual Line of Site (BVLOS).