Platform documentation

RPAS WILCO is built around four core modules: Flight Planning, Airspace Intelligence, Fleet Management, and Compliance Automation.

Flight Planning handles site surveys, mission scheduling, and pre-flight checklists with automatic NOTAM and METAR integration.

Airspace Intelligence provides real-time Canadian airspace data sourced from NAV CANADA, including controlled zones, restricted areas, and temporary flight restrictions.

Fleet Management tracks drones, pilots, visual observers, and payload operators across your organization.

Compliance Automation generates CARs 901.27-compliant site surveys, flight logs, and incident reports.

Airspace boundaries, controlled zones, and restricted areas are sourced from NAV CANADA's Designated Airspace Handbook (DAH).

NOTAMs (Notices to Airmen) are ingested in real time and overlaid on the interactive map, alerting pilots to temporary restrictions or hazards.

METARs and TAFs provide current and forecasted weather conditions at aerodromes, displayed alongside mission planning tools.

CFS (Canada Flight Supplement) charts for aerodromes are available to Pro, Business and Enterprise subscribers.

Each site survey PDF includes: mission parameters (pilot, drone, observers), operation area map with markers, airspace classification, active NOTAMs, weather data (METAR/TAF), and a risk assessment.

The map snapshot captures the operation radius, team positions, and any obstacle markers placed during planning.

Surveys automatically pull airspace data for the selected location, including proximity to aerodromes and controlled zones.

All generated surveys are stored in your mission history and can be exported as PDF for regulatory or insurance purposes.

The default checklist covers pre-flight (drone inspection, battery, propellers, firmware), in-flight (airspace monitoring, communication), and post-flight (landing, power-off, log) phases.

Pro, Business and Enterprise users can design custom checklists via the web dashboard, adding, removing, or reordering sections to match their SOPs.

Checklist timestamps are recorded automatically — "Power on Drone" starts the flight timer, "Power Off Drone" stops it and logs the duration.

Completed checklists are attached to the mission record and can be reviewed alongside site surveys and flight logs.

Automatic flight logs are generated when using the checklist — flight time is tracked from drone power-on to power-off.

Manual flight logs can be created for flights conducted outside of RPAS WILCO, preserving a complete pilot logbook.

All flight logs record: date, duration, pilot, drone, and associated mission. Business and Enterprise accounts also log the client and project.

Flight hours are aggregated per pilot and per drone, accessible from the dashboard for reporting and compliance.

Account Owner — full access to all settings, billing, team management, and missions.

Pilot — can create and conduct missions, complete checklists, and log flights. Starter and Pro accounts support one pilot; Business and Enterprise support multiple.

Visual Observer (VO) — assigned to missions as a crew member. Cannot create missions independently.

Payload Operator (PO) — assigned to missions involving specialized payloads. Cannot create missions independently.

Enterprise Super User — has administrative access across the organization, including team-wide mission creation and reporting.

A geometry is a saved map shape held in a per-user library and importable into any mission. Availability is currently open to all account tiers, including free.

Two geometry types exist. A Polygon is a closed area defined by its vertices. A Path is a linear route stored as a centreline.

Paths render an automatic corridor buffer of 40 m around the centreline. The buffer is generated on draw and is not currently configurable.

Geometries can be drawn against contextual map layers: VNC and VTA charts, airspace below and above 700 ft AGL, aerodromes, active wildfires, wildfire hotspots over 24 hours, NOTAMs, population density and national parks.

Vertices placed on a chart layer store the charted coordinates directly, so a traced airspace boundary reproduces that boundary without re-projection.

File import accepts KML and GeoJSON. Imported shapes land in the library as Polygons. Only the first geometry in a multi-shape file is read.

Sync is one-way. Shapes created on web appear on mobile automatically; create, edit and delete operations are web-only, and the mobile library is read-only.

Editing an existing shape is not yet supported on either platform. To change a geometry, delete it and redraw.

Sharing is per-user. A geometry is visible only to the account that created it; organisation-level sharing is not currently available.

Forecast data comes from Open-Meteo with a 16-day window. Longer horizons are not available.

Cache TTL is one day. A background job refreshes actively-queried grids on a rolling window, so frequently-checked locations stay minutes-fresh.

All values are location-specific to the map centre except geomagnetic Kp, which is a planetary index and identical everywhere.

Wind is reported at four altitudes — 180 m, 120 m, 80 m and 10 m — and colour-tinted by safety band: green under 7 m/s, amber around 11 m/s as a soft limit, red at 14 m/s and above.

Wind is expressed in m/s to match the SI and ICAO / MET conventions used in aerodrome briefings and in Transport Canada thresholds.

The Aviation card reads METAR from the nearest aerodrome within 30 km and derives the standard VFR / MVFR / IFR / LIFR flight category. Beyond 30 km the card is hidden.

Geomagnetic Kp is shown for the current period plus a 3-day forecast at 8-hour cadence. Bands are 0-3 quiet, 4 unsettled, 5 and above storm.

Thunderstorm indication combines CAPE, which describes atmospheric potential, with the forecast weather code, which describes expectation. The lightning icon is suppressed unless low or mid cloud cover reaches 80 percent.

The precipitation indicator triggers on any precipitation category, including light drizzle at 0.5 mm/hour, because rotor water loading, unsealed airframes, gimbal fogging and propeller icing near 0 degrees C all present risk well below the threshold a person would notice.

Cloud cover is reported as HIGH, MID and LOW, ordered most-to-least visible from the ground. A thin LOW layer alongside a precipitation forecast often indicates virga, where the drop evaporates before reaching the surface.