A Part 107 tool is only as good as the data behind it. If a planning tool shows you a clean airspace map but the layers haven't been refreshed in a year, it's worse than useless — it's misleading. We built VLOSready on the same government and public-aviation feeds that commercial flight-planning tools read from, and we think you should know exactly which ones.
Airspace boundaries — FAA ArcGIS
The Class B, C, D, E, and G boundaries you see on the Airspace Map Pro come from the FAA ArcGIS feature services — specifically Class_Airspace, US_Airport, and related layers. These are the same authoritative sources published by the FAA for aeronautical use, and they update as the FAA issues chart amendments. When a Class D ring changes or a new airport is commissioned, the layer updates and we pick it up on the next render — there is no VLOSready-curated polygon anywhere in the stack.
LAANC altitude ceilings — FAA UAS Facility Map
The grid ceilings you see overlaid around airports are pulled from the FAA UAS Facility Map (UASFM), the same dataset every LAANC provider reads. When you hover a grid square and see a 200 ft ceiling, that number is the FAA's published value — not an estimate. LAANC ceilings can change when the facility map is updated by the FAA, so if you're near a controlled-airspace edge, check again on the day of flight.
METAR and TAF — NOAA AviationWeather.gov
All observed weather (METAR) and forecast products (TAF) in VLOSready are proxied from NOAA's AviationWeather.gov API. We request the raw product, parse it in plain English, and make a VFR/MVFR/IFR/LIFR determination based on ceiling and visibility — but the underlying text is unmodified and timestamped. The Weather & Forecast tool always shows you the raw report next to the decoded version, so you can verify anything that looks off.
NOTAMs — AviationWeather.gov proxy
The NOTAM checklist pulls NOTAM text for your target airport through an AviationWeather.gov proxy, classifies each one by type (runway, airspace, obstacle, procedure, hazard), and presents them as a preflight checklist you can sign off. Nothing is paraphrased — the original NOTAM text is preserved verbatim for every item on the list.
TFRs — FAA TFR list
Temporary Flight Restrictions come from the FAA TFR list, which is the same feed that SkyVector and ForeFlight surface. Each TFR in VLOSready links directly to its SkyVector map so you can see the exact polygon, times, and affected altitudes in the authoritative view.
Daylight and civil twilight — sunrise-sunset.org
Sunrise, sunset, and civil-twilight times (important for Part 107 daylight-operation rules and the 30-minute civil-twilight window with anti-collision lighting) come from sunrise-sunset.org, which uses astronomical calculations from the US Naval Observatory. If the app tells you civil twilight ends at 18:42, that's the USNO value for your exact coordinates.
Address and location search — Nominatim (OpenStreetMap)
When you search for an address to plan a flight, we proxy the request through Nominatim, the OpenStreetMap geocoder. Nothing about your search is stored on our servers, and the lookup resolves to standard lat/lng coordinates that then feed the airspace and weather queries.
Map tiles — CartoDB
The dark basemap you see under the airspace layers comes from CartoDB, a standard tile provider used across the web. The tiles are purely visual — all aeronautical data is layered on top from the FAA sources above.
Why this matters
There are plenty of drone apps that wrap a polished UI around outdated or unsourced data. We don't. Every airspace polygon, every altitude ceiling, every METAR bar in VLOSready traces back to a government feed you can check yourself. If you're preparing a preflight brief for a client or a commercial job, you should be able to answer the question “where does this number come from?” for every single line item.
Always verify with official FAA sources before flight.
VLOSready is a workflow tool, not a compliance authority. We surface the feeds — the go/no-go decision is yours as PIC.
Official sources, bookmarked
- Airspace & charts: adds-faa.opendata.arcgis.com
- LAANC ceilings: FAA UAS Facility Map
- Weather: aviationweather.gov
- TFRs: tfr.faa.gov
- NOTAMs: notams.aim.faa.gov
If anything in VLOSready ever contradicts one of these sources, trust the source and tell us. We'll fix it.
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