UASidekick Launches Digital SGIs in Partnership with FAA

Tuesday, April 23, 2024 — San Diego, CA

at AUVSI Xponential

UASidekick, an AirWise Affiliate, is pleased to announce that digital SGI (Special Governmental Interest) airspace authorizations are now live.  The FAA, in partnership with UASidekick, is providing public safety and critical infrastructure the ability to quickly and easily obtain flight authorizations in temporarily closed airspace.  The FAA realizes that public safety UAS operations are often required even when a given airspace is closed for national security reasons such as Presidential travel.  Until now, obtaining this type of authorization was a manual process that presented the potential for errors in translation of lats/longs and other key data requirements.  The FAA continues to move aggressively towards making these types of interactions streamlined, accelerated, and error-free through digitization.  Now, obtaining a clearance to fly in closed airspace for public safety or critical infrastructure needs is as simple as opening the UASidekick app, touching where you want to fly on the map, and entering flight altitude and justification.  The entire process is completed in less than 30 seconds, and it’s entirely free to Public Safety organizations.

Nathan Ruff, Founder of UASidekick and President of AirWise Solutions, commented, “Our goal is to make it fast and easy for public safety and critical infrastructure organizations to obtain an airspace authorization in TFR [temporary flight restriction] situations so that they can focus on the critical job they do helping people, keeping communities safe, and saving lives.”  Kerry Fleming, manager of the FAA’s Special Operations Support Center (SOSC), says his department is available 24/7, 365 days a year to work with law enforcement on SGIs, and they’ve collaborated with developers of the B4UFly App to make the process of getting an SGI waiver even easier for qualified agencies.  We’ve been working with agencies that have a DFR program, and we’ve listened to the challenges that they have with regard to TFRs, especially those related to POTUS.  Providing digital SGIs is a game-changing improvement that will make everybody’s life easier.  We’re delighted to be working with Nathan and UASidekick to launch these new capabilities.”

Gaining access to the digital SGI process is as simple as downloading a free trial of the UASidekick app (www.uasidekick.app).  After which, a quick email to nathan@uasidekick.com requesting SGI access to grant authorization will activate the functionality.  UASidekick requests any and all feedback, and/or functionality enhancements, to continuously improve this service – please use the above email.

AirWise Solutions is a 100% US Owned and Operated company providing a suite of software capabilities to help UAS operators.  Based in Tulsa, Oklahoma, AirWise offers the most complete airspace awareness and authorization tools available, including LAANC for Part 107 pilots, NOTAMs for COA operations, B4UFLY, and digital SGIs for public safety and critical infrastructure.  In addition, AirWise provides remote identification, multicast streaming video with sub-second latency, 3D UAV telemetry tracking with health status monitoring, situational awareness COP, photogrammetry, pilot/fleet management, and administrative reporting and compliance solutions.  The software suite is scalable and extensible with APIs in place for partner integration.  www.airwisesolutions.com.