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Mandatory Update (before first flight)

Required before your first flight

Your aircraft and GCS ship at a baseline version. Before you fly for the first time, you must run this update. It brings both ends to a known-good, mutually-compatible release. Flying before the update can leave the command link or navigation in an unsupported state.

This is a hard pre-first-flight step. It is safe, self-checking, and reversible: the update verifies its download, health-checks the result, and automatically rolls back if anything fails.

Outline — IOC operator-guide skeleton

This is the day-0 structure for the mandatory-update guide (a hard IOC deliverable). Steps reflect the real self-verifying / health-gated / auto-rollback update flow and are finalized per platform.

Before you start

  • The aircraft is powered and has internet through Starlink.
  • The GCS app is running and the aircraft shows as bound and online.
  • You are not about to fly — allow time for the update to complete.
  • Leave the aircraft powered for the whole update; do not power-cycle it mid-update.

Run the update

  1. In the GCS app, open the Dashboard / Update area.
  2. Start the aircraft update. The app:
  3. downloads the new release and verifies its signature and checksum (fail-closed — a bad download is rejected, not installed);
  4. applies it and health-gates the result;
  5. automatically rolls back to the previous version if the health check fails.
  6. Wait for the update to report complete. A full update (including a forced rollback if needed) can take several minutes — this is expected.
  7. Update the GCS application if the app prompts you, so both ends match.

Verify after updating

  • The GCS shows the aircraft online at the new version.
  • The bridge link is healthy (transport state nominal).
  • Navigation reports a position and the quality gate is satisfied.
  • The reported aircraft and GCS versions are compatible (the app confirms this).

If the update fails

  • The system rolls back automatically to the last working version — your aircraft is not left in a broken state.
  • Retry once the aircraft is back online.
  • If it fails again, see Support & FAQ before flying. Do not fly on a failed/partial update.