One of the biggest hurdles for drone expansion in America is simple: seeing where they are in the sky. That’s especially true as drones begin flying farther, longer, and beyond the pilot’s direct line of sight. Now, SiFly Aviation says it has taken a meaningful step toward solving that problem through a new partnership with ADS-B Exchange.
The two companies announced that SiFly’s cloud-connected Q12 drones can now appear on ADS-B Exchange’s live airspace displays, placing them alongside traditional crewed aircraft in a shared real-time view of the skies.
In plain English, that means someone looking at airspace activity could potentially see airplanes, helicopters, and participating SiFly drones in one place instead of relying on separate systems. For the drone industry, that matters.
As commercial drone missions grow in areas like public safety, infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring, and emergency response, operators increasingly want permission for Beyond Visual Line of Sight, or BVLOS, flights. Those missions often involve covering long distances where direct pilot visibility is impossible.
SiFly says its Q12 drone was built for exactly that type of work. The aircraft is designed for multi-hour missions and can cover tens of miles in a single operation, giving it a role closer to serious industrial aviation than the short battery-hop image many Americans still associate with drones.
According to the companies, the system has already been tested in live operations, with Q12 telemetry displayed in real time through ADS-B Exchange. Unlike many crewed aircraft that broadcast ADS-B signals through onboard radios, SiFly’s drones use secure cloud connectivity to share telemetry data. That information is then surfaced inside the tracking platform.
Brian Hinman, founder and CEO of SiFly, says drones that fly longer and farther need to become visible in the same awareness tools used by pilots. Greg Kimball, chief product officer at ADS-B Exchange, adds that bringing new aircraft types into the platform can improve situational awareness across shared airspace.
The timing is notable. US regulators continue working toward broader frameworks for integrating drones at scale, including rules tied to unmanned traffic management and future data-service layers. Many in the industry assume widespread drone integration will require entirely new systems.
SiFly is arguing the opposite: much of the groundwork may already exist. If drones can securely feed live telemetry into platforms people already use, the path to scalable operations may be faster than expected.
That doesn’t mean every drone will suddenly appear on public maps tomorrow. But it does signal where aviation is heading: one sky, one picture, with crewed and uncrewed aircraft sharing the same digital airspace.
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