Lifecycle Management: Active & Inactive Aircraft

As your fleet evolves—aircraft retire, get damaged and repaired, or are repurposed—UAV Desk lets you manage the lifecycle of each aircraft. You can delete, archive (mark inactive), or reactivate UAVs. The action available to you depends on the aircraft's current state and whether it has flight logs.

Available actions by state

The action buttons appear at the bottom of the aircraft detail panel, below a horizontal divider. What you see depends on two factors: whether the aircraft is Active or Inactive, and whether it has associated flight logs.

Delete Aircraft

Prerequisites: Aircraft is active and has no flight logs.

Click the Delete Aircraft button (red). A browser confirmation dialog appears:

"Are you sure you want to delete this aircraft?"

If you confirm, the aircraft and all its data (specifications, configuration files, maintenance logs, maintenance reminders) are permanently removed from the system. This action cannot be undone.

Set Inactive

Prerequisites: Aircraft is active and has flight logs.

Click the Set Inactive button (amber). The aircraft is immediately marked as inactive. No confirmation dialog appears; the action executes right away. The detail panel closes and you're returned to the list view.

What "inactive" means:

• The aircraft appears only when you toggle the Status filter to "Show Inactive" at the top of the page.
• The import system will reject any attempt to assign new flight logs to an inactive aircraft.
• All historical data is preserved: flight logs, configuration files, maintenance logs, maintenance reminders, and all other metadata.
• The aircraft displays an amber INACTIVE badge in the list and has an amber information banner in the detail view.

Use cases for marking inactive:

• Aircraft sold or given away
• Aircraft damaged and being repaired (temporarily archived)
• Seasonal aircraft (stored during winter; reactivated in spring)
• Test/prototype aircraft no longer in use

Reactivate Aircraft

Prerequisites: Aircraft is inactive (active status: false).

Click the Reactivate Aircraft button (green). A browser confirmation dialog appears:

"Are you sure you want to reactivate this aircraft?"

If you confirm:

• The aircraft is marked active again.
• It can now receive new flight logs in imports.
• The Status filter automatically switches to "Show Active" so you immediately see the reactivated aircraft in the list.
• All historical data is retained.

Status indicators and information banners

On the aircraft list card:

• Inactive aircraft display an amber INACTIVE badge next to the drone name.
• Simulator aircraft display a purple SIM badge (independent of active/inactive status).

In the detail panel (at the top of the Actions section):

• Inactive aircraft: An amber banner displays: "⚠️ Inactive Aircraft — This aircraft is marked as inactive and cannot be used for new flight logs."
• Active aircraft with flight logs (but not yet inactive): A blue banner displays: "⚠️ Flight Logs Present — This UAV has N flight log(s). You can only mark it as inactive to preserve data consistency." This informs you that deletion is not available and explains why.

Workflow examples

Example 1: Retiring an aircraft

1. You have an old quad with 50 flight logs that you no longer fly.
2. In UAV Management, select it and click Set Inactive.
3. It moves to the inactive list and stops accepting new imports.
4. The aircraft's complete history (50 flights, configs, maintenance records) remains in the system for reference and analysis.

Example 2: Testing a simulator entry

1. You create a test UAV entry (marked as a simulator) to test imports.
2. It has no flight logs (you didn't actually import anything).
3. You click Delete Aircraft to remove it.
4. The test entry is completely removed.

Example 3: Aircraft in repair

1. Your favorite quad crashes and goes in for repair.
2. You mark it Set Inactive so you don't accidentally try to import logs against it while it's down.
3. Repair is completed 2 weeks later.
4. You click Reactivate Aircraft and it's back in the active fleet, ready for new flights.

Best practices

• Archive, don't delete: Unless you're absolutely sure you'll never need the data again, mark aircraft as inactive instead of deleting. Keeping the history is invaluable for trend analysis and troubleshooting.
• Use inactive for temporary archival: If an aircraft is temporarily out of service (repair, seasonal storage), mark it inactive. You can easily reactivate it when it's back in operation.
• Only delete test entries: Reserve deletion for test data and incomplete UAV setups that have no flight logs. Everything else should be archived inactive.
• Check the banner messages: Before taking action, read the blue and amber banners at the bottom of the detail panel. They explain why certain actions are or aren't available and guide you to the right choice.