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Grant Flight Authority

Authorize a pilot to fly a specific drone in your account.

Farmer

Flight authority is the permission a pilot needs to arm a specific drone. It's granted per-drone and lives on the Drone Detail → Settings tab. Granting and revoking is owner / administrator territory.

What you'll need

  • Owner or Administrator role on the account.
  • The pilot already added as a user to the account with the Pilot (or higher) role.
  • The drone you want to authorize.

If the pilot isn't a user yet, see Settings — Users & Roles first.

The walkthrough

  1. Open the drone

    Go to My Drones, find the drone, click to open its detail page.

  2. Open the Settings tab

    Click the Settings tab. You'll see the Flight Authority section.

    Description: "Grant or revoke flight permission for pilots in this account."

  3. Open the Add Pilot drawer

    Click Add Pilot.

    The drawer opens:

    • Title: "Add Pilot".
    • Description: "Search for pilots in this account to grant flight permission."
    • Search input: "Search by name or email..."

    If no pilots are registered at all you'll see "No pilots registered in this account." In that case, add a user with the Pilot role first.

  4. Find the pilot

    Search by name or email. Matching pilots appear in the list.

    Each pilot row shows their name, email, and any badge (e.g., Authorized if they're already authorized for this drone).

    If your search returns nothing: "No pilots found for this search."

  5. Grant access

    Click Grant Access on the pilot's row.

    On success: alert "Access granted — Flight authority was successfully granted." The pilot's row badge updates to Authorized.

    On failure: alert "Error — Failed to grant flight authority."

  6. Verify in the drone's authorized list

    Close the drawer. The pilot now appears in the Flight Authority section. The drone's pilot list is now updated.

  7. Notify the pilot

    Tell the pilot. They don't get an automatic notification yet (on the roadmap). Once notified, the next time they sync their controller, the new authority is recognized.

Revoking flight authority

Same place. On the Flight Authority section of the drone's Settings tab, click Remove Authority on the pilot's row.

Confirmation:

  • "Access revoked — Flight authority was successfully revoked."

If the pilot is currently flying, the revoke takes effect on their next controller sync (within ~60 seconds). The aircraft itself will land normally — flight authority is checked at arm time, not mid-flight.

Bulk operations

To authorize many pilots on many drones:

  • For now this is a manual loop (one drone → many pilots, or many drones → one pilot via My Drones → Manage Pilots).
  • A bulk-authorize UI is on the roadmap.

Common situations

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Last updated Oct 20, 2018