Best Practices

Treat overlays as a first pass, not a briefing

The airspace, geo-zone, NOTAM, and TFR overlays are great for spotting conflicts early — while you can still move the mission a few hundred meters. But data sources update on their own schedules and can lag behind reality. Do your official pre-flight briefing (national NOTAM service, DABS/AIP, or your authority's drone map) as the final step before every flight.

Be deliberate about AGL vs. MSL

AGL altitudes are relative to your launch point, MSL altitudes are absolute. Imported missions may use either reference, and mixing them within one plan quickly becomes confusing in hilly terrain. Pick one mode per plan where possible, set the plan's default altitude accordingly, and double-check the altitude mode of every imported waypoint before flying.

Use the 3D view for terrain clearance

Before exporting, enable 3D terrain and switch to the 3D view. Fly the camera along the route and look for legs that run close to ridgelines or into rising terrain — a 60 m AGL leg planned over a valley can end up below ground level on the far slope if the altitudes were entered as MSL (or vice versa).

Check the route against airspace vertically, not just horizontally

A route that looks clear on the 2D map may still climb into a CTR shelf or TMA above it. The 3D view renders airspace volumes between their published vertical limits, so a quick 3D pass shows whether your altitudes actually stay below controlled airspace.

Save plans to the UAV that will fly them

Saving a plan to a UAV keeps mission, aircraft, configs, and maintenance history in one place. Recurring missions (inspections, mapping grids) benefit from the automatic versioning: re-save after each revision and you keep a full history of how the mission evolved, comparable at any time.

Export early for the ground station

If the mission will be flown from Mission Planner, QGroundControl, or INAV Configurator, export a test file early and load it into that tool once. Ground stations differ in how they interpret speeds, loiter parameters, and jump counts — a one-minute round-trip check saves surprises at the field.

Plan with margins

Keep lateral distance from geo-zone boundaries and NOTAM areas rather than planning right along their edge — GPS drift, wind, and RTH paths do not respect polygon borders. The same applies vertically: leave a buffer below airspace floors and above terrain.