The apps
A drone app is the software running on the phone clamped to the handset, or on the handset's own screen, and there are two separate kinds: the flight app that the aircraft manufacturer supplies, which flies the camera and shows the telemetry, and an airspace app, which shows what is above and around the field you are standing in. The first one comes in the box. The second one does not, is the one people skip, and is the one that is opened before the aircraft comes out of the bag. Both run on Android and on iOS, and neither of them makes the aircraft fly: the radio in the handset does that on its own.
The two kinds of drone app, and what each is for
The two kinds of app answer different questions, and confusing them is the common mistake. One answers what the aircraft is doing. The other answers where you are allowed to put it.
| App | Answers | Where it comes from | Works without signal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flight app | Height, distance, battery, satellites, camera settings, live picture | The aircraft manufacturer, free with the machine | Yes, once the maps are cached |
| Airspace app | Airports, restricted zones, ranges, temporary restrictions, ground hazards | Aviation bodies and independent publishers, free or subscription | Only if the data was downloaded first |
| Camera or editing app | Trimming, colour, export of the footage | Anywhere, unrelated to the aircraft | Yes |
Learning to fly is a skill you build with the sticks; the apps are the instruments. The controller supplies the radio link and the physical inputs, and the phone supplies the picture, the numbers and the map. Neither replaces looking at the aircraft.
Connecting the handset and the phone
To connect the handset and the phone, use the short cable supplied in the box and the port on the handset, not Bluetooth and not wifi. The aircraft link runs on 2.4 GHz, with 5.8 GHz commonly carrying the video, and neither is what the cable is for. The sequence is the same on nearly every consumer machine: install the flight app first and let it finish its initial download over a home connection, plug the phone into the handset, switch the handset on, then switch the aircraft on, and accept the connection prompt the phone raises.
- Use the cable that came with the handset, because a charge only cable carries power and no data.
- Remove a thick phone case before clamping, since the clamp jaws are sized for a bare phone.
- Turn off automatic updates for the flight app before a trip, because a half applied update at the field ends the day.
- Set the phone to do not disturb, so an incoming call does not take the screen mid flight.
What the flight app is doing while you fly
The flight app is doing four jobs at once, and it is worth knowing which number to look at. It draws the live picture from the camera, with a delay of a fraction of a second, which is why it is a framing tool and not a flying tool. It reports the telemetry: height above the take off point, horizontal distance, battery percentage and satellite count. It carries the camera settings, meaning exposure, white balance, file format and video mode. It records the flight log, which is the file that tells you what happened when a flight goes wrong.
The number that gets ignored is satellite count. A machine that lifts off with too few satellites locked will hold position badly and will not know where home is, and the app shows that figure plainly before you arm.
Why the airspace app is opened before the bag is
An airspace app is checked before the flight rather than during it, because what it shows cannot be fixed once the aircraft is in the air. It draws the ground you are standing on with the controlled airspace over it, the flight restriction zones around aerodromes, the danger areas and ranges that switch on and off, and any temporary restriction raised for an event. It also marks the things that are not aviation at all: prisons, some government sites, nature reserves with nesting seasons, and land where the owner has asked that nothing takes off from it.
The requirements themselves are set out and published by the Civil Aviation Authority, which operates the registration scheme that issues an Operator ID for the person responsible for the aircraft and a Flyer ID for the person at the controls, with the 250 gram mark and the 400 foot ceiling, which is 120 metres, doing most of the work of deciding what applies. Those requirements change, and an app's copy of them is a snapshot taken on the day it was updated. Read the current position on the CAA's own pages before you fly, not on a map layer.
What an app cannot tell you
Four things sit outside what any drone app knows, and all four have ended flights.
- Wind at height, which is stronger than the wind at your feet and is not measured by the phone.
- Who is standing behind the hedge, which decides whether the flight is sensible whatever the map says.
- Whether the landowner minds, since airspace data and land ownership are unrelated records.
- Whether a restriction was raised this morning, if the app last refreshed its data last week.
An app also cannot make a decision on your behalf. A green map is not a permission and a warning triangle is not a prohibition; both are the publisher's reading of information that the Civil Aviation Authority holds the authoritative version of.
Choosing an airspace app without being sold one
Choose an airspace app on three tests rather than on its rating. Ask when its data was last refreshed and whether it says so on the screen. Ask whether it works with the phone offline, because a good flying field often has no mobile signal at all. Ask whether it names its source, since an app that quotes the published aeronautical information is checkable and one that does not is an opinion with a map behind it. Free versions cover the ordinary hobby case; the paid tiers mostly add planning tools built for commercial operators.
Simulators are the other piece of software worth having on the same phone or laptop, and they cover the part the flight app cannot teach: what the sticks feel like when the aircraft is doing something you did not intend. Line of Sight sets out the rest of what a new flyer has to know before the first flight.