Aerial Photography Legalities
- Thread starter JohnBailey3000
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If the school benefits in anyway from the photos, then you must have a Part 107 Certificate.(Cert to operate a UAV for hire)
Along with written permission from the school....since it's private property. Always CYA
Also, a Part 61 holder; (private, commercial, ATP pilot), must be current to take the Part 107 test.
Along with written permission from the school....since it's private property. Always CYA
Also, a Part 61 holder; (private, commercial, ATP pilot), must be current to take the Part 107 test.
Firstly, you are not being consistent. A school fully meets the description of a business or organization in a way that your neighbor's house does not. That's not a difficult distinction to understand, at least for most people. And according to the OP, the school asked specifically asked him to engage in aerial photography. That's really not even an ambiguous situation. As for helping with search and rescue, how, under your definition, is that benefiting you or a business? I'm not defending the rules by the way - just pointing out what has already been established.
On top of which you are now fully ignoring the elephant in the room, namely that the question has been asked directly of the FAA many times, and so you are now effectively just arguing that direct FAA interpretation, advice and actions are incorrect. Your choice, and you can certainly challenge them if it comes to that, but you should stop pronouncing on matters that you apparently neither understand nor can be bothered to verify, and your continued aggressive response of dismissing any view contrary to your own as "nonsense", "BS" etc. is not a substitute for a well-reasoned position.
I really hesitate to add my 2 cents; there are several persons who know the rules because they live by them and many others who are dead wrong, but can't stand to be corrected. By reference, I am in my 56th year of living under the glare of the FAA with 13,000 flight hours in everything from a Benson gyrocopter to B727s and many things in between.
The law is very simple although its logic could be questioned; and logic and common sense have absolutely nothing to do with it. Consideration (compensation) has nothing to do with it. The case law supports what some have offered. You fly under the "hobby rule", as interpreted by the FAA, and all is well. EVERYTHING else is commercial. You take photos and GIVE them to someone else who uses them for ANY purpose other than hanging them on the wall, and you are in the commercial program. The minimum fine is $1100 for the drone operator and the minimum fine for the USER is $11,000, PER PHOTO!! Yes, the comma is in the correct position. Two recent cases: A company hired an unlicensed operator to take in-house photos and they got tagged for $1.9 million. They lost the appeal. In another case, the unlicensed operator gave 5 photos to someone who used them in their website. That cost him $55,000. He lost the appeal. The very best advice that I have heard is to call the local FSDO and tell them what you plan to do. Although I appreciate all those who offer an opinion, the stakes for this are incredibly high. I see no question about what is legal and what is not. And to those who are not willing to study the law, you are doing a huge disservice to those who may follow your "common sense" opinion, that likely will cost them their house and car. No one that I know of has ever accused the FAA of common sense. And even though I have a Part 107 of the FARs, I still called the local FSDO. What matters most is how the FAA interprets the law; nothing else matters. And that Administrative Law Judge who will hear your appeal works for the FAA; He probably overturns their decision around 2% of the time. Appeal to the NTSB and they run about 1% of the time. THEN you can go to federal Court. Good luck with that.
The law is very simple although its logic could be questioned; and logic and common sense have absolutely nothing to do with it. Consideration (compensation) has nothing to do with it. The case law supports what some have offered. You fly under the "hobby rule", as interpreted by the FAA, and all is well. EVERYTHING else is commercial. You take photos and GIVE them to someone else who uses them for ANY purpose other than hanging them on the wall, and you are in the commercial program. The minimum fine is $1100 for the drone operator and the minimum fine for the USER is $11,000, PER PHOTO!! Yes, the comma is in the correct position. Two recent cases: A company hired an unlicensed operator to take in-house photos and they got tagged for $1.9 million. They lost the appeal. In another case, the unlicensed operator gave 5 photos to someone who used them in their website. That cost him $55,000. He lost the appeal. The very best advice that I have heard is to call the local FSDO and tell them what you plan to do. Although I appreciate all those who offer an opinion, the stakes for this are incredibly high. I see no question about what is legal and what is not. And to those who are not willing to study the law, you are doing a huge disservice to those who may follow your "common sense" opinion, that likely will cost them their house and car. No one that I know of has ever accused the FAA of common sense. And even though I have a Part 107 of the FARs, I still called the local FSDO. What matters most is how the FAA interprets the law; nothing else matters. And that Administrative Law Judge who will hear your appeal works for the FAA; He probably overturns their decision around 2% of the time. Appeal to the NTSB and they run about 1% of the time. THEN you can go to federal Court. Good luck with that.
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@BellevueV is correct. If a fellow is flying and photographing exclusively for fun and enjoyment, and the results are not INTENDED for the promotion of a business or other operation, then, my goodness gracious folks, he does not need to have a remote pilot certificate. Judges and litigation-crazy folks, and the FAA have better things to occupy their time unless the flight violates outlined safety provisions and/or causes damage or injury. Not trying to continue an argument here. Good grief.
A chap in Minnesota was fined by the FAA for basically doing similar to what you are proposing. He videotaped a public event honoring a lion killed by a hunter and gave the video to the organizers. No pay, no profits from the video, but he took the video not for his own recreation so the FAA fined him $55,000. I know the guy has been fighting the fine, and it's caused a lot of discussion in the FAA, but I don't know if it's ever been resolved.
I think that you are basically correct, but your summary is not what @BellevueV was arguing. The OP's question related to a school asking him to do some aerial photography for them. It did not clearly meet the criteria that you correctly identified above. Might he have never had any problems? - certainly - but he should make an educated decision on that. My objection was someone coming in and baldly asserting an interpretation that the FAA has both stated and demonstrated differs considerably from their own and that could get others into trouble.
Oh, I may have misunderstood that - apologies. I will cheerfully admit that, as much as reacting to this thread overall, it was the cited unfairness to Mical Caterina (who safely photographed the Minnesota Lion cause photos in August 2015 and the FAA fined - unsuccessfully - $55K) that got me going. Thank the Lord, the regulatory climate and overreach in the US have calmed down significantly since then, along with the addition (finally) of reasonable codes. I believe reason and common sense for protecting our population are beginning a comeback.
Admirable optimism - I hope that you are proven correct. Though, to be fair, I think that Part 107 was a very reasonable addition to 14 CFR.
If you keep the video for your own use, no value is exchanged and you don’t need a commercial license. If you give the video to another ... family, friend or organization ... you have exchanged value, even though the exchange was not 2-way. Then you need an FAA RPIC license.
Has anyone heard what happened to Mical Caterina, the guy who was fined? There were a lot of articles about it last year, but nothing since then. That situation is the unfortunate example why taking videos/photos for free is not considered a hobby.
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But one question I like to ask (and honestly I am not flaming the fire, it really is a truthful question)
Let's say the OP did take pics and exchange for beer and cash,
The reality would be
1) the FAA wouldn't know
2) so many Ariel pics on the net of basically everything you can think off, how will the FAA come across this certain school?
3) if they ever did... How would they know if the OP was FAA or not?
4) if they did ring the school, whats stopping the school saying "yes he is FAA but I no longer have he's contact details anymore"?
I mean... There isn't a lot that can really go wrong for the OP. I mean big cases like flying over the statue of liberty, white house, etc... That will get their attention as I am sure it will be on TV
But for a public school the the FAA most likely never heard of or know where it is.... I doubt that they will ever have known.
Like I said.... I am not causing an argument... Just a reasonable debate on that one
Let's say the OP did take pics and exchange for beer and cash,
The reality would be
1) the FAA wouldn't know
2) so many Ariel pics on the net of basically everything you can think off, how will the FAA come across this certain school?
3) if they ever did... How would they know if the OP was FAA or not?
4) if they did ring the school, whats stopping the school saying "yes he is FAA but I no longer have he's contact details anymore"?
I mean... There isn't a lot that can really go wrong for the OP. I mean big cases like flying over the statue of liberty, white house, etc... That will get their attention as I am sure it will be on TV
But for a public school the the FAA most likely never heard of or know where it is.... I doubt that they will ever have known.
Like I said.... I am not causing an argument... Just a reasonable debate on that one
All good points. As far as I can see the way people have mostly landed in trouble is when they were reported or when the FAA saw obvious online evidence. But the discussion was not really about how likely one is to get away with doing that - it was simply about what the law, and the FAA, say about it.
Meta4
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Remember that it's perfectly legal for anyone to point a camera out of a plane, helicopter or hot air balloonand take all the photos they like and sell them without breaking any laws.
Despite what some people think, the FAA aren't the aerial photography police.
The FAA don't have enough people and funding to properly carry out their core business of managing air safety.
They don't trawl the web checking on any photos that might have been taken from the air to investigate whether they were legal or not.
They are concerned with things that matter like unsafe flying or unlicensed commercial aviation.
But they aren't chasing down everyone that ever gave a photo away to a friend or school.
A check of what actual prosecutions they have made of drone pilots gives you an indication of how the "offence" being discussed really rates.
That's true, but why is it relevant? There are clearly situations where you need a Part 107 license in the US to engage in aerial photography - no one is disputing that. The fact that you never need a license of any kind to do that from a manned aircraft makes it clear that these are unrelated situations.
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Was just pointing out to Neon that the FAA don't run a check on all aerial photography to answer his questions
Right - good point. You mean that it may be hard to tell whether a photo was taken from an aircraft or a drone.
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