Last updated 20 September 2026
Updraft records your flight using the sensors already in your phone. That recording belongs to you and stays on your phone unless you choose to sign in or export it.
Recording a flight writes a position fix roughly once a second to a database on the phone: time, latitude and longitude, barometric and GPS altitude, ground speed, track and G load. Alongside it Updraft keeps your logbook entries, your pilot profile and home airfield, your instrument panel layout, your unit preferences, drill scores, and any debrief audio you record and its transcript.
None of this leaves the phone on its own. Deleting the app deletes all of it.
An account is optional. Recording, the logbook, flight reports, IGC export and the drills all work while signed out. If you do sign in — with Sign in with Apple or an email link — Updraft can back your flying up and connect you to a club. What syncs then:
| Data | Why |
|---|---|
| Your name and email address | To identify your account. With Sign in with Apple you may choose to hide your real address, and Updraft only ever sees the relay address. |
| An account identifier and a device identifier | To keep your data yours, and to check that a device submitting a flight for ranking is a genuine one. |
| Flights, including precise position traces and IGC files | So a lost or replaced phone does not cost you your logbook. |
| Flight notes and debrief transcripts | So a debrief survives with the flight it belongs to. |
| Recorded cockpit audio | Only when you explicitly opt a debrief in. It is off by default and set per debrief, not once for everything. |
| Flight school progress, club membership and leaderboard entries | So an instructor or club can see the progress you chose to share. |
Synced data is held in Updraft's own database, hosted by Supabase, and is readable only by your account and by people you have explicitly shared it with — a club you joined, or a leaderboard you entered. Sharing a flight with a club is described in full below.
You can show one flight at a time to a club you belong to. When you do, other members of that club can see when you flew, for how long, in what glider, and can replay the flight's track.
They never get your notes, your debrief, or any cockpit audio — sharing a flight shares the trace and nothing else. A club administrator cannot take a flight from your logbook; only you can share one, and only into a club you have joined. You can stop sharing at any time, and access ends immediately.
Nothing is shared by default, and there is no setting that shares everything.
Some features need information from the internet. Where a request has to say roughly where you are, that is listed here. None of these services are given your name, your email or your account.
| Service | What it receives | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Open-Meteo | The coordinates of your home airfield | The soaring forecast and today's conditions |
| OpenAIP | The area you are flying in | Nearby airspace |
| EOX and AWS terrain tiles | The part of the map you are looking at | Satellite imagery and terrain for the map and globe |
| unpkg | Nothing but the request itself | Loads the 3D globe's rendering library |
| Flightradar24 | The area you are flying in | Nearby transponder-equipped traffic, in the Max live layer |
| Apple | Handled entirely by Apple | Sign in with Apple, subscriptions, and App Attest device checks |
If you record a debrief, the audio is captured on your phone and transcribed on your phone, using Apple's on-device speech recognition. The recording is not sent anywhere to be turned into text.
The resulting transcript syncs with the flight if you are signed in. The audio itself is uploaded only if you turn that on for that debrief.
Updraft Pro and Updraft Max are auto-renewing subscriptions sold through Apple. Apple processes the payment; Updraft never sees your payment details and does not receive or store your purchase history. Manage or cancel a subscription in your Apple Account settings.
In the app: Customize → Account and plan → Account and sync → Delete cloud account. This permanently deletes the account and the cloud copies of your flights, artifacts, club memberships, school progress and leaderboard entries.
Two things worth knowing. Deleting the cloud account does not delete the flights held on your phone — those are yours and stay until you delete them in the logbook or remove the app. And deleting the account does not cancel an Apple subscription; subscriptions are cancelled through Apple.
You can fly a glider solo at 14 in many countries, and Updraft is built partly for people learning at that age. It contains no advertising, no tracking and no open web content. An account is never required to use it, and we ask for no more than the account itself needs. If you are under the age at which you can agree to this yourself, ask a parent or guardian before creating an account.
Sharing a flight with a club shows other members of that club where and when you flew. It is never automatic, it is limited to the one flight you choose, and it can be undone at any time — but it is worth understanding before you use it.
Data on your phone is kept until you delete it. Synced data is kept while your account exists and is removed when you delete the account. Server logs used to keep the service running are short-lived and are not used to build any profile of you.
You can see your data in the app, export it as IGC or CSV at any time, and delete it — locally in the logbook, and in the cloud with the account deletion above. If you would like a copy of what is held for your account, or want it removed and cannot reach the app, write to us and we will do it.
If this policy changes in a way that affects what is collected or where it goes, the date at the top will change and the app will say so.
Questions about privacy, or a request about your data: ethan.paschkes@gmail.com.