BWHS · Part 107 · Flight-path art

Sky Art

Draw a picture, teach a drone to fly it, then lay the drone's own record over the plan. Like Bentonville pilot Benjamin McDaniel, “Pilot Picasso”, who draws in the sky with his Cessna (5NEWS, Oct 6, 2026).

Field view

The field view is a map. Your drawing is the magenta line; the drone's recorded flight is the blue line. Drag empty space to pan, use the mouse wheel or the plus and minus buttons to zoom, and press Fit to frame the site.

Official FAA record

Make

Type a word

A–Z, 0–9 and the dash. Spaces are fine. The word appears at the site's center.

Pick a shape

Meme stickers

Noto Emoji © Google, Apache 2.0.

The square test is the first mission: a 100 ft square with sides along the site's own edges, centered on the site. It sets 100 ft and 3 m/s too.

Draw freehand

Drag on the field with a mouse, pen or finger. Each drag is one stroke. Keep lines long: the drone slows at every waypoint.

Trace a picture

No picture loaded

Drag the picture on the field to move it. Then trace it yourself with Draw, or let the computer make a first draft.

Less detail is fewer, smoother points; more detail follows every wobble and costs waypoints.

Auto-trace fits the picture into this many waypoints.

The picture is read inside this browser. It is never uploaded and never saved.

Fix it up

Point editing is on: drag a point, click a line to add one, select a point and press Delete to remove it. The buttons above work on the selected point.

Place

feet
degrees

Rotation is relative to the screen: 0 keeps the art upright as you look at it. Width is measured across the screen, before rotation. Drag the art itself to move it, and drag the launch marker to the spot where you will stand.

Check

feet above takeoff
feet

meters per second
seconds
unconfirmed until the square test
points
unconfirmed until the square test
minutes, usable

Your plan

    By default the path is one continuous magenta line, the way a tracker records it. Ticked, the straight moves between parts of the drawing show dashed.

    Fly

    The CSV has one waypoint per point, straight lines between them, at the altitude and speed set in Check.

    From file to flight

    1. Litchi Hub. Import the CSV, choose straight lines, and check the altitude and speed on every point. not yet confirmed by the square test
    2. Litchi Hub Bridge on a school computer. On Windows, install Apple's Devices app first. Connect the iPad with a cable and trust the computer.
    3. The SkyRover app. Open the mission on the iPad, check it against this page, then fly it with your thumb ready to take over. not yet confirmed by the square test

    Before you fly

    Prove

    No flight loaded

    SRT captions, OpenDroneID CSV, GPX or KML. The file is read here and goes nowhere.

    Load the drone's flight record and this will say how close it came to your line.
    No video loaded

    With the video loaded, the blue line follows the video's own clock, so the picture and the track stay together.