Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using DroneChecker at dronechecker.co.uk, via the Google Play Store, or via the Apple App Store, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, please do not use the App.

2. Description of Service

DroneChecker is an informational application. The free tier, available to everyone with no account required, provides:

• Live weather conditions and flying condition ratings tailored to your drone model, factoring in wind speed and gusts at 10m, 80m and 120m altitude
• 6-hour hourly weather forecast with per-slot flying condition ratings, plus a 15-minute nowcast for the next 2 hours
• Geomagnetic activity (KP index) information from NOAA, integrated into the fly rating
• Pre-flight checklist for drone pilots
• Restrictions map showing ground hazards and indicative airspace zones (schools, railways, airfields, military zones, nature reserves and more)
• Operator ID and Flyer ID renewal reminders
• Today's conditions summary
• General UK CAA regulatory guidance
• Links to official airspace information resources
• Offline mode showing last known conditions when no internet connection is available
• Favourite location saving for up to 2 frequently visited flying sites

DroneChecker Plus is an optional paid subscription (£2.99/month or £22.99/year) providing additional features including:

• Extended 72-hour hourly forecast and 7-day best day to fly planner
• Wind Detail map — full 10m/80m/120m altitude wind breakdown, plus a rain radar overlay showing recent and current precipitation
• Golden Hour tab — golden hour, blue hour, sunrise and sunset times, a sun path map and photo-condition scoring
• Flying Spots — browse and share recommended flying locations, with photos and reviews
• Flight logging with cloud sync across devices, CSV/Excel/Google Sheets export and local JSON backup
• Unlimited saved locations with live fly-rating dots
• Multiple custom drone profiles with configurable wind thresholds, synced across devices
• Extended today's conditions summary (best flying window, golden hour and battery notes)
• Push notifications for flight-condition alerts (up to 3 saved locations) and an optional daily conditions summary

DroneChecker Pro is an optional paid subscription (£3.99/month or £29.99/year) that includes everything in Plus, plus:

• Live NOTAM overlay on the Restrictions map — real-time UK temporary airspace restrictions
• Community Planned Flights — see and share where nearby pilots plan to fly

⚠️ 3. Important Safety Disclaimer

4. Eligibility and Acceptable Use

DroneChecker is intended for personal, non-commercial informational use by drone pilots. By using the App you confirm that:

• You are at least 18 years of age, or are using the App under the supervision of a parent or legal guardian who accepts these Terms on your behalf. Note that under UK drone regulations, anyone aged 13 or over may hold a Flyer ID and fly a drone unsupervised in the Open Category, but must be 18 or over to register a CAA Operator ID in their own name (refer to caa.co.uk/drones for details).
• You will use the App only for lawful purposes and in compliance with all applicable aviation regulations.
• You will not use the App to plan or conduct flights in airspace where you do not have the necessary permissions or authorisations.
• You will not attempt to circumvent, reverse-engineer, or interfere with the App or its underlying services.
• You will not rely solely on the App as your only pre-flight check — it is a supplementary tool, not a replacement for official checks.

5. Regulatory Compliance

It is your responsibility to comply with all applicable regulations including:

• UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) drone regulations
• CAA Operator ID registration — required for drones 250g or more, or 100g–250g if fitted with a camera (from 1 January 2026; optional for 100g–250g drones without a camera). Annual fee, currently £12.34 — verify on the CAA website as fees are subject to change.
• CAA Flyer ID — required for all drones 100g or more (free)
• Remote ID broadcast — mandatory for UK1, UK2, UK3, UK5 and UK6 class drones from 1 January 2026, extending to UK0 camera drones (100g+), UK4 model aircraft, and legacy aircraft from 1 January 2028
• UK drone class marking rules (UK0/UK1/UK2/UK3/UK4) introduced from 1 January 2026
• Green flashing light — mandatory for all Open Category drones flown at night from 1 January 2026
• The Air Navigation Order 2016 (as amended)
• Any local bylaws or restrictions at your flying location
• The regulations of any country you are flying in, if outside the United Kingdom

Regulations are subject to change. Always refer to caa.co.uk/drones for the most current requirements and fees.

6. Accuracy of Information

We make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy, however:

• Weather data is sourced from Open-Meteo and may not reflect hyperlocal conditions
• KP index data is sourced from NOAA and may be subject to delays or temporary unavailability
• Wind direction and speed data is sourced from Open-Meteo at 10m, 80m and 120m above ground level and may differ from conditions at your specific flying altitude
• Golden hour calculations are mathematical estimates and may vary slightly from observed conditions
• Drone wind limit thresholds are based on manufacturer specifications and may differ from real-world performance
• Offline cached data reflects conditions at the time of last successful data fetch and may be significantly outdated
• CAA rules displayed are subject to change — always refer to caa.co.uk for current regulations
• The 7-day best day to fly recommendation is based on forecast data which becomes less reliable further into the future
• If Open-Meteo is temporarily unreachable, the App may show a reduced-fidelity backup forecast sourced from Met.no (the Norwegian Meteorological Institute). This backup forecast estimates gusts rather than measuring them, and does not include altitude wind, 72-hour forecast, or space-weather data.
• Push notifications (flight-condition alerts and daily conditions summaries) are delivered on a best-effort basis via Firebase Cloud Messaging and are not guaranteed to arrive promptly, or at all — network conditions, device settings, and OS-level restrictions can all prevent delivery. Do not rely on a notification, or the absence of one, as your sole pre-flight check.

7. Flight Log

DroneChecker provides a flight logging feature, available to Plus and Pro subscribers, for personal record-keeping purposes only. Flight log data is stored locally on your device and synced to Firebase Firestore (Google Cloud, EU region) to enable cloud backup and cross-device access. You can export (CSV, Excel or Google Sheets) or delete your flight log at any time within the app. To request full account and data deletion, contact us at bbridgewater.dev@gmail.com.

DroneChecker does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or legal sufficiency of flight log records for any regulatory, insurance, or legal purpose. You are solely responsible for maintaining accurate and compliant flight records as required by applicable regulations.

8. Community Content (Flying Spots & Planned Flights)

DroneChecker Plus and Pro subscribers can submit Flying Spots (a write-up of a recommended flying location, with optional photos, conditions, access and legal notes, plus star ratings and comments left by other users), visible to other Plus and Pro subscribers. DroneChecker Pro subscribers can additionally submit Planned Flights (an approximate flying area and time window, so nearby pilots can see when and where you plan to fly), visible only to other Pro subscribers.

Posting community content requires an account with an email address. A subscription on its own is enough to read Flying Spots, reviews and Planned Flights, but not to post them: submissions are attributed to an author, moderated, and can be reported and blocked by other pilots, so they need an author we can identify and contact. If you subscribed without registering, the app will ask you to add an email address the first time you try to post. By submitting either, you agree that:

• Content is shown to other users alongside your first name only — we do not display your full name, email address, or account details to other users.
• Flying Spots (and additional photos submitted to existing spots) are reviewed by us before becoming visible to other users; we may reject, edit for length, or remove any submission at our discretion, including after publication. Planned Flights are published immediately without review, and Planned Flights are automatically deleted approximately 24 hours after their end time; you may also cancel your own Planned Flight at any time.
• You confirm your submission is accurate to your knowledge, does not infringe any third party's rights, and is not illegal, defamatory, misleading, or unsafe. You grant us a licence to host, display, moderate, and remove it.
• Content submitted by other users — including access and legal notes on a Flying Spot — is not verified, endorsed, or fact-checked by DroneChecker (see Section 3).
• By default, Flying Spots and reviews are not deleted if you delete your account, since they remain visible and useful to other users; contact us at bbridgewater.dev@gmail.com to request removal of a specific submission. You can instead opt in, via a checkbox on the account deletion screen, to have all of your Flying Spots, reviews and photos permanently deleted immediately as part of account deletion.

8.1 Objectionable content and abusive behaviour

There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users on DroneChecker. You must not submit content — in a Flying Spot, a review, a photo, or a Planned Flight — that is abusive, harassing, threatening, hateful, discriminatory, obscene, defamatory, deliberately misleading, or that encourages unsafe or unlawful flying. You must not impersonate anyone else, post another person's private information, or use community content to advertise.

We may remove any content and suspend or terminate any account that breaches this section, at our discretion and without notice.

8.2 Reporting and blocking

Every piece of community content in the app — Flying Spots, reviews, and Planned Flights — carries a Report option. Reports go directly to us and can be sent with an optional note explaining the problem.

We review every report, typically within 24 hours, and remove content that breaches Section 8.1. Where a user repeatedly or seriously breaches it, we may also remove their access to community features or terminate their account entirely.

You can also block another pilot, either from the report screen or on its own. Blocking hides that pilot's Flying Spots, reviews and Planned Flights from you across the app. Blocks are tied to your account rather than your device, so they apply wherever you sign in, and you can undo one at any time from Settings → Blocked pilots.

If you would rather raise something by email than through the in-app report tool, contact us at bbridgewater.dev@gmail.com.

9. Plus and Pro Subscriptions

DroneChecker offers two recurring paid subscription tiers: Plus (£2.99/month or £22.99/year) and Pro (£3.99/month or £29.99/year, including everything in Plus plus live NOTAMs and community Planned Flights). Depending on how you access DroneChecker, subscriptions are billed via Stripe (the website), via Google Play Billing (the Android app installed from the Google Play Store), or via Apple (the iPhone and iPad app installed from the App Store). By subscribing to either tier you agree to:

• Automatic renewal at the end of each billing period unless cancelled beforehand
• Stripe's, Google Play's or Apple's Terms of Service, whichever applies to your payment method, governing payment processing
• Cancellation at any time — via your Stripe billing portal (website subscribers), the Google Play Store's subscriptions page (Android app subscribers), or Settings → your name → Subscriptions on your device (Apple subscribers) — access continues until the end of the current billing period
• Changing tier (Plus ↔ Pro) or billing period (monthly ↔ yearly) at any time — website subscribers can do this via the Stripe billing portal, and Android app subscribers can do this in-app from the Account screen. An upgrade to a higher tier applies immediately with a prorated charge; a downgrade or a billing-period change instead applies at the start of your next billing period, and you keep your current plan's access until then. Apple subscribers change plan from Apple's own Subscriptions screen, where all four options appear, and Apple applies its own timing to upgrades and downgrades.
• No refunds for partial billing periods, except where required by applicable law
• Prices may change — you will be notified in advance of any price change

Plus and Pro features are available only while your subscription is active. If payment fails, access to paid features will be suspended until payment is resolved or the subscription is cancelled. If you already have an active subscription, we prevent a second one wherever we can — starting a new card subscription on the website is refused while another is active. Where we cannot prevent it, we clean it up instead. Apple charges as soon as you confirm a purchase on your device, before our systems are told about it, so that one cannot be refused. In that case the new Apple subscription becomes your active subscription and we automatically cancel your previous card or Google Play subscription, so you are not billed twice. The app warns you and asks you to confirm before this happens.

10. Intellectual Property

All content within DroneChecker, including the app design, logo, code, and text, is the intellectual property of DroneChecker and is protected by applicable copyright and intellectual property laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works without our express written permission.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, DroneChecker and its operators shall not be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the App, any inaccuracy in data provided, any drone incident or regulatory infringement, or any third-party claims arising from your use of the App.

Service availability: We do not guarantee that the App will be available continuously or without interruption. The App depends on third-party services (including Firebase, Firebase Hosting, Firebase Cloud Messaging, Open-Meteo, Photon, Met.no, Rainbow.ai, OSRM, Stripe, Google Play Billing, and Apple's App Store) which may experience downtime beyond our control. We are not liable for any loss or inconvenience arising from temporary unavailability of the App or any of its features, including features included in a paid Plus or Pro subscription.

12. Third-Party Links and Services

DroneChecker integrates data from and contains links to third-party services including the CAA, Open-Meteo, Met.no, NOAA, OpenStreetMap Nominatim, Photon (komoot), OpenFreeMap, Rainbow.ai, Postcodes.io, Project OSRM, Google Analytics, Google Ads, Firebase (Google Cloud, including Firestore and Storage), Firebase Cloud Messaging, Google Sign-In, Stripe, Google Play Billing, Apple (App Store and Sign in with Apple), Resend and Firebase Hosting. These are provided for convenience and functionality only. We are not responsible for the content, accuracy, availability, or practices of any third-party services. Each third-party service is subject to its own terms and privacy policy. Weather data from Met.no is used under the Norwegian Licence for Open Government Data (NLOD) and Creative Commons 4.0 BY licence — data from MET Norway.

13. Governing Law

These Terms of Service shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

14. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time and will indicate the date of the most recent revision at the top of this page. Continued use of the App following changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised terms.

15. Contact Us

Operator: DroneChecker is operated by Bridgewater Studio.

Email: bbridgewater.dev@gmail.com
Website: dronechecker.co.uk