Aloft Air Aware Reviews

AloftAirAware does not always work even from a location that worked previously Can usually only check my immediate area. Not useful if I am going to travel and check conditions where I am going

I’m trying to use AloftAirAware on an iPhone SE and failing becaue of the horrible placement of UI controls. The buttons are off the edge of the screen and the close and back buttons simply don’t work. Tapping them passes through to the view beneath them. This is a mess and testing must be nonexistent on devices with the same aspect ratio. UPDATE: I tuned off text zoom in the display settings but the same problem occurs in iOS 17.2.1 and 17.3. I was asked for a screen capture but I don’t see how to add one to this review using an iPad Pro and Magic Keyboard.

I don’t know what this company is doing but they keep releasing apps then dropping support for them and releasing a new one, yet leaving the old ones up on AloftAirAware store.

I have a couple of other apps to check airspace and they show an area near an Air Force Base as restricted airspace (obviously) while AloftAirAware shows it as yellow (fly with caution). All these apps should be pulling the same FAA data so not sure why this one is inaccurate?

I’m hoping this will be built out, beyond a link to Pilot Institute and a link to Aloft. As of 12/18/23, this appears to be a rebranded B4UFLY with less options in the menu. Probably a great marketing tool for both groups. But, if this is going to be a replacement, and described as having been enhanced, I’m missing the improvement. Hopefully, users will see some tangible changes, soon. I may be missing something but it seems like the release and announcements jumped the gun.

Air Control, same developer, has better shading. But anything by Aloft feels incomplete. Perhaps it's the pay wall of features between their enterprise, drone management system that causes this side to feel two-dimensional. Air Control is good since it gives you LAANC confirmations and will keep them in app if needed. Hope this gets better for PilotInstitute.com. Aloft really needs a better UI and workflow. Especially as the major player and developer for the FAA.

AloftAirAware isn’t ready. Buttons disappear at the bottom of screen (iPhone 13 Pro), layers are not selectable, and no altitude grids inside controlled space.

After typing in an address; the keyboard remains on screen obscuring map. There are much better apps available.

Makes me verify that I’m human 3 or 4 times before I can file a flight plan. (users are getting tired of this bull crap)
Constantly reloads, so then it’s telling me to be careful because some drone pilot just filed a FP at my exact location (yeah it was me thanks)
And then I get buzzed by a 2 passenger plane that never showed up at all. So it’s either not showing me manned aircraft or people aren’t filing with this system.

What this really needs is integration with FlightAware, so we know if there are planes or choppers near our airspace.

Lovely app that sadly struggles with some basic usability issues. Get ready while you’re scrolling around to find a location to constantly readjust how you’re viewing the map with a random chance that you can reset it. Maybe I’m doing something wrong but it’s the first map app I’ve ever used where I can’t easily navigating around.

Other than that struggle is wonderful, and very readable, which is why it’s very well worth using over the rest.

So KittyHawk became Aloft which became Air Control while the pointless non-LAANC app copy named B4UFLY became Air Aware instead of simply getting rid of it - what a crazy, embarrassing mess.

With its initial introduction it’s virtually indistinguishable from B4UFly, so I’m not sure what the point was in creating this new app.
Perhaps future releases will provide features.

It needs a weather page like AloftAirAware Air Control
Would be useful

iPhone SE 2nd Gen
iOS 17.3
-When changing from one screen to another the button pushes, don’t seem to recognize the new screen display button locations. Instead, they seem to penetrate the new display and operate on the buttons underneath.
Are all the map layers on one map? Can I selectively turn them off? I just want to see the FRIA areas for example.

For some screens like notify the X and arrow buttons just click the background so you must kill AloftAirAware .
I think it can’t deal with font sizes or something.

I am new to flying. Just got my first drone (mini pro 3) for Christmas. I am following 44809 and am safely learning to fly my drone thanks to training by pilot institute.
Great job of matching B4UFly before it was retired. (like me)
I would like to see a section for pre-pre-flight before on location pre-flight. Showing possibly multiple links to websites for weather info (current or future) with option to select one we prefer to go to the top of the list. Also any other sites we should check that AloftAirAware does not cover (like a link to pilot institute wiki for state and local restrictions) or a link to fpv coalition’s member who posted a fria map.
Put short suggestions as to when we should or when we might want to look at certain links.
Put these in a logical order so from AloftAirAware I can be sure I have done my due diligence to make sure I am clear to fly. Without holding the aloft app responsible.
It would be less stressful if I could go through AloftAirAware and either plan for a fly in a minute and/or start planning for some other flight. Say on a vacation or at night where I need to do more planning.
All these websites I guess could be stored somewhere on my phone. But for me a linked checklist described above will help me and possibly other recreational drone fliers.
Thanks

Increase notification time: 60 minutes is not enough time for my flight times. Allow the radius to be adjusted of where the has operation is taking place the current radius is too small.

Please stop making me prove I’m not a robot, use the biometrics built into our devices

The new app looks great!

Good toll for recreational pilots

This is a good app for all drone pilots, recreational and commercial. I always want to let people know before flight as I use an Autel EVO II. AloftAirAware will do that. Hopefully they will add the ability to preplan an area for commercial work. It would be nice to let pilots know where I am working the next day or even 90 days in advance like LAANC. Currently I can only do this when using LAANC in aloft. Brad at Aloft promptly assured me they are working towards this. Thank you for the great app and making our airspace easier to navigate!

Realizing a large percentage of drone enthusiasts (recreational) largely don’t include a documented preflight regimen, and that’s fine for them, I personally don’t feel comfortable not advising my flight locale with my presence for both courtesy and safety purposes.

I really appreciate this service for its accountability.

Contacted customer support about LAANC. This was on a Sunday afternoon and they got back to me within 15 minutes.
Jon provided me with very good information to my question.

Does the same thing as B4UFly, gee what a surprise, since they’re the ones who made it too. Thanks for stepping up to fill the void that’s going to come when B4UFly retires.

Works great and is very reliable!

Howdy Prescott (like a biscuit) Thank you for picking up where others left off. My Drone was out of service during the transition. Upon getting her back in the air, and for the first time using Aloft, I found the flight logging to be seamless. In my world, anything seamless, is priceless. Thank you for great Customer service. The Griffin

I have used many different drone apps. Finally I’ve found one that is not only super easy to use, it is extremely accurate. And it’s actually made by one of the most trustworthy people out there, pilot institute.