Pilot Withdrawal, No-Show & No-Go Guide

Informational guidance only: not a contract and not a separate policy. Pilots don't accept this guide, and it creates no rights or obligations of its own. The binding rules are in the Pilot Independent Contractor Agreement (sections 4, 6, 7, 8, 13 and 18), the Pilot Deliverable & Conduct Standards (sections 1 to 6 and 8) and the Pilot Payout Policy (sections 2, 4, 5, 8 and 9). If this guide ever differs from them, they control.

1. Declining an offer

You may decline any offer, for any reason, before you accept it. Declining is never a breach. An offer shows its response window, currently 4 hours, and expires if you don't answer in time. Offers reach you only after the customer has paid and every required consent is in.

2. Withdrawing after acceptance

If you can no longer complete a mission you accepted, use Withdraw from this mission as soon as you reasonably know, and choose the reason. You can withdraw until you record Start travel; after that, a weather, airspace or safety stop is a no-go (section 4).

• Qualifying withdrawal: weather, a TFR or other airspace restriction, safety, aircraft or equipment failure, or illness or emergency. It's never counted against you, and the mission goes back to dispatch.
• Other withdrawals: recorded, and the mission goes back to dispatch. Three within 30 days lead to a review, never an automatic pause or a fee.
• Pay: a withdrawal before travel earns nothing for that mission. There's no fine or penalty, and you're never asked to repay money you didn't earn.
• The customer: isn't refunded just because you withdrew; Send a Drone re-offers or reschedules the mission first.

3. No-show

A no-show is failing to arrive and perform an accepted mission without timely communication. It counts as a confirmed performance failure; two confirmed failures within 90 days pause your account for review. A no-show earns no payout, and there's no fine.

4. No-go (safety or legal stop)

As remote pilot in command, you decide whether a flight is safe and lawful. You may refuse to launch, or stop a flight, for any legitimate safety or legal reason: weather; airspace, including TFRs, controlled airspace without authorization, or an FAA authorization you could not obtain; site conditions, people or traffic; equipment or interference. Record it with Report no-go and the reason. A documented, good-faith no-go is not a breach.

The mission is rescheduled and the customer isn't penalized. If you had recorded travel, Send a Drone pays you the trip amount. Don't fly again without a new, safe plan and a new preflight confirmation.

5. Consent objections on site

Before flying, confirm with the site contact that access and consent are unchanged. If an owner or occupant says they didn't consent, or objects, stop capturing that subject, stay courteous, report it as a consent objection, and don't continue the affected part until Send a Drone confirms. If the mission is then cancelled and you had recorded travel, you're paid the trip amount. Continuing after an objection is grounds for suspension.

6. Access problems caused by the customer

If a locked gate, wrong address or missing permission blocks part of the mission after you recorded travel:

• You still met the completion standard (at least 75% of required items accounted for, and every critical item usable or an accepted unable-to-capture item): the mission continues through review and you earn the full payout.
• You didn't: the mission isn't complete and you're paid the trip amount.

An access problem doesn't by itself make an item unable to capture. A locked side door doesn't excuse a missing front elevation.

7. Partial capture

If only part of the mission can be captured safely and lawfully: capture what you can, mark each missed item unable to capture with a valid one-line reason, and submit. A mission is complete, and earns its full payout, when review approves it. That requires every critical item to be usable or an accepted unable-to-capture item, at least 75% of required items accounted for, and your airworthiness record. Payouts are never pro-rated.

8. Recapture

A no-charge recapture applies when a critical item is missing or unusable because of your error, or fewer than 75% of required items are accounted for on a reasonably flyable mission. Your payout pauses while it's open; if you'd already been paid, a recovery obligation is recorded and recovered only by offset or repayment, never by debiting your account. If a recapture fails, Send a Drone records one outcome: completion, one final recapture, a partial refund or a full refund. If the failure was Send a Drone's error, a payout you earned is never reduced.