Drone Flight Time Planner
How many batteries and how many passes fit into the window you actually have. The calculator above takes battery count, flight minutes per battery, reserve and passes and returns usable air time, passes possible and swap schedule — computed in your browser, with no sign-up and nothing leaving your device.
Drone Flight Time Planner
- Usable air time
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- Passes
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Runs entirely in your browser — no sign-up, nothing transmitted.
What the number actually depends on
Manufacturer flight time assumes hover in calm air; a moving shot in wind costs 25 to 40 % of it.
A 20 % landing reserve is not optional — most insurers require it in writing.
The gap between a number that goes into a quote and one that holds on the day is rarely the formula — it is whether the constraints were entered honestly. That is why the inputs are spelled out below.
Common mistakes
The places where the arithmetic is right and the day still falls over:
- Planning back-to-back flights without charge time between them
- Ignoring that the approval window may be shorter than the light window
In day-to-day production
Cold cuts capacity sharply: at 0 °C expect roughly 70 % of the rated flight time.
The number belongs in production planning — the point where a decision is still free to change. Working it out on the shoot day is no longer calculating; it is finding out.
In TillyGen this is not a separate step: the result sits inside the plan itself, alongside the shot list, schedule and call sheet. Change a constraint and the dependent values move with it — the affected parts of the plan are flagged rather than quietly left behind.
Frequently asked
How accurate is the Drone Flight Time Planner?
The maths is exact; the inputs rarely are. Treat the result as a solid floor and add your buffer deliberately rather than smuggling it into the inputs — a flattered input hides the buffer from everyone who plans with it later.
Is the calculator free?
No. It runs entirely in your browser, with no sign-up and nothing transmitted. There is no usage limit and no account.
Where does this fit in production planning?
In production planning. There it is a basis for deciding; later it is only a finding.
Can I export the result?
The calculator itself only displays the value. In TillyGen it lands directly in the shot list, schedule and call sheet, and goes out as PDF, CSV or through the API to everyone working from it.
What does the calculator return?
Usable air time, passes possible and swap schedule. The first value is the one you carry into the plan; the rest show how sensitively it reacts to the inputs.
What should I watch for in the result?
Mainly this: planning back-to-back flights without charge time between them. That is the mistake that most often turns a correctly calculated number into one that does not hold.