Pre-Flight Checklist

A clean pre-flight in the portal takes about three minutes. Following this checklist before every mission prevents the two most common in-field surprises: an unexpected Do not Fly badge after you've already driven to the field, and a missing or out-of-date prescription map that forces a re-plan.

1. Confirm the drone status is Ready to Fly#

Open the drone's detail page from My Drones. The badge in the header should read Ready to Fly.

If it reads anything else, read the active alerts on the Overview tab before deciding to proceed.

2. Check flight authority#

In the Settings tab of the drone, the Flight Authority section lists who can arm this aircraft. If your name is not there:

• Ask an account Owner or Administrator to add you (see Grant Flight Authority).
• Wait a minute — the controller picks up the change on its next sync.

3. Review the maintenance status#

On the drone's Overview tab, scroll to the Status card. Confirm:

• Maintenance Due Soon is not active.
• Maintenance Overdue is not active.
• Firmware Update Required is not active. If it is, take the firmware update before flying — a known-bad firmware can refuse to arm or, worse, behave erratically mid-mission.

4. Look at recent support tickets#

The Support tab of the drone shows tickets opened against this airframe. Skim the last few Open or Reopened tickets. If a teammate has reported a propulsion or battery issue on this same drone and there's no resolution yet, treat the aircraft as Fly with Caution even if the badge is green.

5. Verify the prescription map (if you're spraying or seeding)#

If today's mission uses a prescription map:

1. Open Map Prescription in the sidebar.
2. Locate the map by farm/field name.
3. Confirm the Date matches the plan you've been given.
4. Click Download Shapefile and upload it to the controller. (Always download fresh — agronomy edits often happen the morning of a mission.)

6. Check airspace and conditions#

The portal flags two airspace-relevant items:

• No-Fly Zones drawn by the OEM or by your account admin are visible in Map Management. They appear as red overlays.
• Local restrictions (FAA TFRs, NOTAMs, sensitive sites) are not automatically synced. Cross-reference your normal airspace planning tool.

For weather, follow your standard pre-flight weather routine. The portal does not pull weather data.

7. Confirm the battery plan#

Battery status is reported live during the flight, not pre-flight. So at the portal level there's nothing to check here — but in your physical pre-flight, make sure:

• All packs are above your account's Minimum Battery Threshold (set in Settings → System Settings → Flight Readiness Rules).
• You have at least two charged spares per planned hour of flight.

8. Note the start time#

The portal logs the flight start time automatically once the drone arms. For your own records (and for matching against the post-flight report), write down the wall-clock start time. You'll thank yourself when reconciling reports.

Pre-flight done — what next?#

Hand the controller to the operator (or yourself), fly the mission, and as soon as you land come back to:

• In-flight monitoring for what to expect while the mission is in progress.
• Post-flight & reports for the routine after touchdown.