What’s new in IDRONECT 2.0 ?
The biggest change in IDRONECT 2.0 is due to a change in Belgian drone legislation and the decision by the BCAA not use any digital platform to give authorisations for drone flights, something they were actually doing before the legislation got changed. A step back in history we feel, but hey we don’t make the policy. We adapt to the policy.
So, we adapted IDRONECT so it would still give the users full administrative and intuitive support, enabling them to focus on their mission: flying drones in a safe and compliant manner.
Authorisations
The BCAA requires drone users to fill out forms which are available on the BCAA’s website. These forms consist of flight notifications and flight authorisations. For a first flight in class 1A, an authorisation needs to be asked at least 10 days prior to the planned authorisation. Then before the actual flight takes place, a notification needs to be sent to the BCAA. Other classes and requirements exist and we refer to the BCAA’s website for more information.
Anyway, by filling out the IDRONECT user’s profiles for operator identity, pilot(s), drone(s), accessories and by creating a flight scenario, we are able to fill out 90% of the required fields for the BCAA’s authorisations and 100% for the flight notifications, automatically. How do you like that ?
The remaining 10% for the authorisations is just indicating which category of operations you are intending to perform, and uploading your digital signature.
IDRONECT can send the authorisation on your behalf or leave the option for you to send the email yourself (we’ll send it first to you though).
You can also create an authorisation profile without passing through the flight scenario section. You will find the authorisation button in the Profile section.
Flight Scenario-centered approach
The second big change we made is the shift from pure authorisation-centered platform (which IDRONECT 1.0. was) to a flight scenario centered approach. We know you want to fly, and we are building your support tool to do just that. That’s why there are way fewer selection keys on the left: in fact 3 remain instead of 6.
- Operation
- Logbooks
- Profiles
After you have created your profiles, 90% of your time will be spent in Operation . And there it is quite simple: you create a flight scenario and then you fly it.
After the flight has been performed, the flight data is automatically written to the logbooks section, where you can find all details of your historic flights. Add those flight hours !
Create Scenario becomes Mission Control
The Create scenario section now starts with a much bigger visual interface, we’d almost like to call it the cockpit.
You start out by choosing your flight location. The map very easily indicates which airspace you will be flying in.
Then you choose the flight area you will be operating in: this can be a polygon or a radius. You can even indicate what the start- and endpoint is of the flight.
After you answer a few risk parameter questions, IDRONECT knows immediately which flight class is applicable, and then automatically indicates which steps are required (authorisation, notification or both for class 1) and prepares them for you. Click the correct button and Bob’s your uncle.
In the next page, you will also find all the required flight preparation data (weather, NOTAM’s, Kp index, …) so you are good to go.
Start a flight, end a flight, log a flight, report an incident, all of it gets done from within this page.
Oh, and we’ve got much more coming your way in this section very soon. Stay tuned !
Logs are linked to profile views
Now when you have a look at your neat pilot profile or drone profile, you will see how much you or the drone have flown. That’s also true for the accessories by the way.
Give us more to do
We hope you are enjoying using our tool, but we really appreciate if you leave us comments, questions or any feedback so we can make our tool better, and update this blog post :-)
Fly Safe,
Team IDRONECT
