Rotorcast support

Each hour is judged against the limits you set for your drone: wind, gusts, rain chance, temperature, visibility and the Kp index, plus the weather condition. An hour is No-go if any factor is past its limit (for Kp, at or above your No-go setting), or the condition is a thunderstorm or other storm, hail, snow, sleet, freezing rain or freezing drizzle, or a wintry mix. It’s Marginal if a factor is close to its limit without going over: from 80% of a wind, gust or rain limit, within 3 °C of a temperature limit, under 1.25 times the visibility limit, or at or above your Kp Marginal setting. Otherwise it’s Go. The hour takes its worst factor, and that factor is named.

Night is the time between civil dusk and civil dawn. With Night hours are No-go on (in the drone’s settings), night hours are never Go. Turn it off and night hours are judged on the weather and marked with a moon.

Go means inside your drone’s limits. Rotorcast doesn’t check airspace or whether a flight is legal.

Rotorcast treats Apple Weather’s wind and gusts as the standard 10-metre forecast and scales both to your drone’s flying height with the formula v(h) = v10 × (h ÷ 10)^α, where α depends on the ground at the spot: 0.14 for open ground, 0.22 for trees and houses, and 0.30 for town. If there’s no gust forecast for an hour, the gust is taken as 1.4 times the wind speed, and Hour detail says so.

It’s an estimate, and Hour detail says how it was made, for example “Estimated at 60 m from the 10 m forecast for open ground”. Set the flying height (10 to 120 m) in Drones, and the ground for each spot in Spots.

Tap an hour on the chart or in a day’s strip, or tap a day’s window to open its first hour. Tapping Now and the verdict at the top of the Forecast opens the current hour. Hour detail shows every factor against its limit, with the one that decides the hour first, the civil dawn and dusk, and how the wind was estimated; the arrows step to the hour before or after. You can also slide a finger sideways along the chart or a day’s strip to read each hour, then lift it to open that hour.

Hours that have already gone today, and hours beyond the end of the forecast, are left blank. So is any hour Apple Weather sent no forecast for: Rotorcast leaves a gap in the day’s strip, and a break in the chart’s line, rather than guessing. Without Rotorcast Plus, tomorrow’s strip stops 24 hours from now, and the later days open with See ten days with Plus.

NOAA’s Kp forecast covers about the next three days, in three-hour blocks. Hours after its last block show a dash instead of a Kp figure and aren’t judged on Kp. If NOAA can’t be reached and its last forecast is more than 24 hours old, Rotorcast shows “Kp forecast unavailable” and leaves Kp out until it can fetch a new one.

When you open a spot whose forecast is more than an hour old, and whenever you pull down on the forecast to refresh it. With Rotorcast Plus, the widget also refreshes your primary spot’s forecast, at most every three hours and not between 22:00 and 05:00. “Updated” under the forecast says when it was fetched. Without a connection you see the last forecast, marked offline with how long ago it was updated, and once it’s more than a day old Rotorcast says so.

Apple Weather answered with an error for that place, or sent no hours for it. Pull down on the Forecast to try again later. Only that spot is affected; your other spots still work. If Apple Weather doesn’t answer at all, Rotorcast says “Apple Weather didn’t respond” instead, and pulling down tries again.

Hours are shown in the spot’s own time zone, and the forecast says so when it differs from your iPhone’s. If Rotorcast couldn’t find a spot’s time zone when you added it, the spot uses your iPhone’s time (“phone time”), and Rotorcast tries again whenever the Forecast shows that spot while you’re online, until it finds one.

In Spots, tap + and search for the place, tap the map to drop a pin, or tap Use my location. Set Terrain to Open ground, Trees and houses or Town, which tells Rotorcast how the wind grows with height there, and tap Save. The primary spot is the one the widgets and the 07:00 notification use; open a spot and tap Set as primary to change it. To remove a spot, swipe it or open it and tap Delete spot.

Rotorcast needs permission to use your location while you’re using it. If you said no, turn it on in Settings › Rotorcast › Location, or add the spot by searching or tapping the map instead, which don’t need it. If your location is approximate, check the pin before you save.

In Drones, open the drone to edit every limit, the flying height, the night setting and its pre-flight checks. New drones start from a preset for under 250 g, 250–900 g or over 900 g; the presets are cautious starting points rather than any maker’s figures. Wind units (m/s, km/h, mph or knots) and temperature units (°C or °F) are in Settings › Units.

You always keep at least one drone, so the last one can’t be deleted.

The widgets come with Rotorcast Plus. There’s a small and a medium Home Screen widget and a Lock Screen widget; each shows the next Go window at your primary spot. For the Home Screen, touch and hold an empty part of it, tap Edit, then Add Widget, and choose Rotorcast. For the Lock Screen, touch and hold it, tap Customise, choose the Lock Screen, tap the space for widgets below the time, and choose Rotorcast. Without Plus the widget says “Widgets come with Plus”, and tapping it opens Rotorcast Plus in the app.

Turn on Best window at 07:00 in Settings (it comes with Rotorcast Plus). The notification is worked out from the forecast already on your iPhone, and it’s sent only when that forecast is no more than 12 hours old at 07:00 and your primary spot has a Go window of at least an hour from 07:00 onwards that day, for your default drone. No Go window, no notification. It works best with the widget installed, because the widget keeps the forecast up to date while the app is closed.

If notifications are off for Rotorcast, turn them on in Settings › Notifications › Rotorcast.

Tap the checklist button at the top of the Forecast. It shows your default drone’s checks; tap Edit to change them. Under Airspace and rules, Open the Drone Code and Open the NATS airspace map open those pages in your browser. Tap Done to save the run, however many checks you’ve ticked. Finished runs are listed in Settings › Checklist history, where “Airspace opened” means you tapped Open the NATS airspace map during that run. Rotorcast doesn’t check airspace itself.

Without Plus you get one spot, one drone and the next 24 hours, with Kp, daylight and the checklist, with no time limit. Rotorcast Plus adds the full ten days, unlimited spots and drones, the widgets and the 07:00 notification, for £1.99 a month or £12.99 a year. New subscribers get 7 days free. The subscription renews automatically until you cancel it.

Sign in with the same Apple Account, then go to Settings › Restore Purchases in Rotorcast. If it says “No active Plus subscription on this Apple Account”, check that you’re signed in to the account you subscribed with.

Cancel in your Apple Account settings (Settings › your name › Subscriptions) or from Settings › Manage subscription in Rotorcast, at least 24 hours before the end of the current period to stop the next renewal. Apple handles refunds: go to reportaproblem.apple.com.

Rotorcast goes back to the free features and deletes nothing. You see the next 24 hours at your primary spot with your default drone; your other spots and drones stay in the app, locked, and come back if you subscribe again. The widgets say “Plus has ended”, and the 07:00 notification stops. Export and the checklist history keep working.

No. Rotorcast Plus isn’t shared through Family Sharing.

Yes, on every plan. Settings › Export has two buttons, Spots and drones (CSV) and Checklist runs (CSV). Each makes one CSV file and opens the share sheet so you can save or send it.

Everything Rotorcast stores is on your iPhone. Delete spots and drones in the app, or delete Rotorcast from your iPhone to remove everything, including the checklist history, which can’t be deleted in the app. Rotorcast has no account and Mirentha holds none of your data. The privacy policy has the details.