FAA hands off drone app

The FAA announced Feb. 27 that enterprise drone software developer Kittyhawk will give this app a makeover at no charge.

San Francisco-based Kittyhawk, founded by Jon Hegranes and Joshua Ziering, caters to commercial and enterprise (large-scale commercial) operators, so taking over an app made with novices in mind will be a bit of a departure. Ziering acknowledged that in a blog post that coincided with the FAA announcement:

“The careful observer might ask why we’ve chosen to work on B4UFLY when Kittyhawk’s focus is purely enterprise solutions. We believe that Kittyhawk needs to be building our industry alongside of our company,” Ziering wrote. “Our goal is for our enterprise customers to be flying as much as possible. Flights don’t happen easier or more frequently when negligent operators are shutting down airports, breaching Presidential TFR’s, or endangering our national security.”

Ziering said in an email exchange that B4UFLY improvements will include incorporating the “Dynamic Airspace” feature built into the firm’s app made for Part 107 operations, which presents maps layered with information specific to the individual user’s operations.

“Now, you'll be able to see extremely clearly, using officially FAA-sourced data, where you can and can't operate your drone,” Ziering explained in an email. “We're building this product for everyone who may want to fly a drone in the United States. We're taking into account lots of different age groups, and even people who may not speak English, or airspace, as their first language.”

Ziering said the firm hopes to have the first new and improved version of B4UFLY available in the second quarter.

The longer-term vision will likely include adding live air traffic information as another layer. Ziering said the firm is working to integrate primary radar data and Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast information, allowing users to see a live picture of the airspace around them. Kittyhawk already supports temporary flight restriction updates within minutes.

“We're pulling TFR data about every 5 minutes and given that most … come hours to days in advance of their imposition, we think this is a reasonable amount of time,” Ziering wrote.

Kittyhawk also partnered with Jeppesen in 2018, though Ziering said Dynamic Airspace and the B4UFLY app project are not related: “We continue to leverage the incredible expertise and capability of Boeing and Jeppesen on a plethora of projects but Dynamic Airspace™️ was all Kittyhawk.”

Queried about a few of the flaws that prompted a plethora of scalding reviews of the FAA’s effort with B4UFLY in Apple’s App Store, Ziering responded that “we had nothing to do with that app.”

Among those reviews, iOS App Store user IrritableBadger covered several common user laments, writing on Jan. 8:

“As near as I can tell, no part of this app is completely functional and most of the parts that do work just open a website inside the app. It’s full of seemingly random information with no bearing on safe and lawful flying ... It’s telling me there’s an airport (private corn field) within 5 miles, but it doesn’t say anything about the restricted airspace above the massive DHS complex between me and that airport … This is supposed to be part of the larger UAS safety initiative and if this is any reflection of the rest of the programs we should all move into underground shelters. This is really bad guys. Really bad.”

Ziering said the firm is aware of such sentiments.

“We know it's been bashed, panned, and lampooned,” Ziering said of B4UFLY. “That's part of the reason why we wanted to undertake this.”