AirData UAV: An Honest Review from the Field

In our line of work, Arctic deployments, marine mammal monitoring, and industrial inspections under SECOR compliance, we evaluate software the same way we assess aircraft: does it perform when it matters? After years of running AirData as the backbone of our flight data management, we're sharing our honest assessment. Not as a sales pitch, but as practitioners talking to practitioners.

The short version: AirData is our favourite application in the drone industry. Here's why, and where we see room for it to become indispensable for industrial operators.

What AirData Does Exceptionally Well

Flight Sync and Data Download

This is the core function, and they've nailed it. Auto-sync works reliably across platforms. When we land after a flight in remote locations, data flows into AirData without friction. More importantly, the export options, CSV, KML, GPX, and original log files give us everything we need for downstream analysis and regulatory compliance. For any operator building a serious flight data archive, this alone justifies the platform.

Equipment-Based Business Model

AirData prices by equipment count rather than per-seat or per-flight. For operations like ours, where we scale through qualified contractors rather than full-time staff, this is the most sensible pricing model in the industry. We hold an Enterprise account with a defined equipment allocation, and they notify us when we approach limits. No surprises, no penalizing growth. It's how drone software pricing should work.

Customer Relations

The AirData team listens. Feature requests don't disappear into a void. Over the years, we've watched them integrate thoughtful tools that clearly came from operator feedback. In an industry full of software companies that seem disconnected from actual field operations, this responsiveness matters.

Comprehensive Post-Flight Analysis

Battery health trending, sensor maps, in-flight wind analysis, and equipment alerts, the depth of quantitative analysis is excellent. When we're diagnosing anomalies or building maintenance schedules, this data is invaluable. The visual presentation makes it accessible for team review without requiring everyone to become a data analyst.

Live Streaming and Equipment Management

Enterprise features like live streaming and fleet oversight across our contractor network work as advertised. For multi-pilot operations, the ability to see everyone's logs and maintain fleet-wide visibility is essential for operational oversight and safety management.

Where We'd Love to See AirData Go

What follows isn't criticism, it's a wishlist from operators who genuinely believe AirData is positioned to capture a much larger share of the industrial and professional market. These suggestions represent gaps we currently fill with multiple platforms, creating workflow inefficiencies that a unified solution could eliminate.

Comprehensive Flight Planning

The current planning features are weather-focused, useful, but surface-level. What we need is the ability to build complete mission packages within AirData: site surveys, airspace analysis, operational risk assessments, emergency procedures, and CONOPS documentation. Not planning tools that make operators think less, but tools that support the complexity professional operations actually require.

Imagine being able to pull NAV CANADA chart data directly into your flight plan, attach site survey documentation, define emergency procedures specific to that location, and export a complete PDF package for client delivery or regulatory compliance. Everything we do manually across multiple platforms is streamlined into one environment.

Safety Management System Integration

This is the big one. AirData already captures the operational data that feeds safety management systems, equipment status, flight deviations, and maintenance triggers. The leap to becoming a full SMS platform isn't large, but it would be transformative for industrial operators.

Currently, we use SiteDocs for our SECOR compliance: hosting policies and procedures, near-miss reporting, hazard assessments, and tailgate forms. It works, but it's disconnected from our flight data. When a near-miss occurs during a flight, we log it in SiteDocs separately, then manually correlate it with the AirData record.

What if we could log that near-miss directly in AirData, linked to the specific flight, trigger a corrective action workflow, and have it feed automatically into SMS trending? The corrective action data for our operations already lives in AirData; it just needs the framework to capture, track, and analyze it systematically.

Qualitative Reporting

All the current reporting is quantitative: flight times, altitudes, battery cycles, and deviation counts. Excellent for equipment tracking, but operations generate qualitative data too. Why did a flight go a certain way? What environmental factors affected the mission? What observations matter for the next operation at this site?

Narrative fields, operational notes, client-facing summaries, a descriptive reporting layer would complete the picture. When we hand data to clients or review operations internally, the story matters as much as the numbers.

Multi-Platform Remote Sensing Support

This one's specific to how remote sensing has evolved. We're not just flying drones anymore; we're integrating autonomous surface vessels, ground-based sensors, and multi-platform mission architectures. AirData is "air" data, and we respect the focus. But the ability to upload non-aerial platform logs, even without auto-sync, just manual upload with custom equipment fields, would acknowledge how the industry is actually deploying.

A surface vessel collecting bathymetric data alongside a drone collecting LiDAR isn't two separate operations anymore. It's one mission. Having that data in one management environment makes operational and analytical sense.

Pre-Flight Checklist Customization

The templated checklists are a good start. But operations like ours need deeper customization, checklists that reflect our specific SMS requirements, equipment configurations, and operational contexts. More flexibility here would let AirData replace standalone checklist apps entirely.

The Bigger Picture

AirData sits at an interesting inflection point. The platform already does flight data management better than anything else available. The foundation is solid, the team is responsive, and the business model respects how professional operators actually work.

The additions we're suggesting, flight planning, SMS integration, qualitative reporting, and multi-platform support, aren't exotic features. They're the tools industrial operators currently cobble together from multiple platforms. Cloud storage and forms aren't a major technical leap. But implementing them thoughtfully would position AirData as the complete operational management platform for professional drone operations.

For operations pursuing SECOR approval, Complex Level 1 certification, or working in regulated industrial environments, a unified platform that handles flight data, safety documentation, and compliance reporting would be transformative. We'd pay more for it. Every serious operator we know would.

Bottom Line

AirData earns our recommendation without reservation for what it currently does. For flight data management, equipment tracking, and post-flight analysis, it's the best platform available. The pricing model is fair, the support is responsive, and the core functionality is excellent.

The suggestions above come from genuine appreciation for the platform and a belief that AirData is positioned to capture the industrial operator market if it chooses to expand in this direction. We'll continue using it regardless, but we're watching with interest to see where they take it next.

If your operation needs serious flight data management, start at airdata.com. We think you'll see why it's become essential to how we operate.

Aeria Solutions Ltd.

Professional Remote Sensing | Western Canada

www.aeria.ai

604 849 2345