Drone flight log
Also known as: flight record, flight log
The record an aircraft keeps of every flight, with route, altitude, battery and camera settings, useful for both compliance and finding a shot.
Updated
What it means
Modern aircraft log everything. Position, altitude, speed, stick inputs, battery health and the moment recording started, all written per flight and synced to the controller or an app. Nothing has to be enabled for it to happen.
Two audiences use it. Regulators want evidence of where an aircraft flew, and the pilot wants to know which flight produced the clip worth keeping. Both read the same file for different reasons.
The camera-side equivalent is embedded in the files. A DJI SRT flight log or GPMF telemetry track carries the same information at frame level rather than per flight.
How it works in practice
Matching log to footage is the everyday use. A pass flown at a known time lines up with a clip by Timecode, which turns a card of unlabelled files into a shot list.
Battery decline shows up here first, since the same route recorded weeks apart ends at a different charge. Logs are how a Drone battery cycle count becomes a decision.
Logs also settle arguments about height and distance after the fact, which matters when Visual line of sight (VLOS) rules are the standard being judged against. A screenshot is worth more than a recollection.
What to watch out for
Logs live where the app put them, and that is often a phone rather than a card. A reinstalled app or a new device can take the history with it, and nothing on the aircraft replaces it.
They also record what the pilot would rather forget. A flight above a limit is in there permanently, which is an argument for flying inside the rules rather than for deleting files.
Finally, a log proves nothing about the footage. It confirms the aircraft was there and says nothing about whether the gimbal was level, so Horizon leveling in post is still judged by eye.
How RawClip handles it
Telemetry embedded in drone files is read where it is present, and the position and speed it carries help separate a travelling pass from a hover. Where only an app-side log exists, selection falls back to the picture, which is usually enough.