Considering operating a drone in a suburban area -- thoughts?

[lad63]

Hi, I'm not actually an owner but am considering buying a drone, the P3 advanced. I'm wondering if I might ask a few questions to decide whether to buy or not. I am sorry if there's already an FAQ for potential buyers, I poked around a little and couldn't find one.　


I live in Westchester Country NY. I'm not within five miles of any airport. I think what would be fun to do is launch my drone from my back porch and fly it around a bit, up across a highway and river valley near my house. I would have line of sight to it.　

What makes me unsure about this plan is reading the FAA regs. I am ok with keeping it in LOS and all that, but flying it across the highway would put it over people who are not involved in its operation, wouldn't it? I mean, people driving in their cars. Also, to get there, may have to occasionally fly past a person walking along on the sidewalk, or even people in their houses that I fly over. 　

What I'm wondering is, how restrictive are these regs? Reading them as tightly as possible, it would seem to basically be impossible to ever use a drone except in extremely remote places totally devoid of humans. 　

I'm hoping this is not an old battleworthy subject, and if it is I'm sorry that my first post brings it up. If there are other threads discussing this it would be great to see a link and I'll quietly read it. Thanks.

 

[RW-1]

Congrats on your smart decision to research and read before doing anything.

It's all about minimizing risk. You can go over the highway, IMHO. minimize that time over it in case something occurs.

The same goes for people, and houses. You can't avoid that, but you can reduce the risk by altering your route.
If,for example, next to a few houses is an empty field, would you transition over the field by choice, or go over the houses?

The fact that your asking already tells me that you have the correct mindset in place.

Get it, fly it and enjoy it, just stay mindful and minimize risk, and you'll be fine.

 

[lad63]

Thanks RW-1. I intend to play it safe, but try to avoid the sort of paranoia that leads to me never leaving my backyard!

I'm a little reluctant to ask this question because it sounds like I'm thinking about "getting over" on the regs, and I'm not. But part of minimizing risk is knowing how tightly the regs are enforced. Are there examples of that, like for instance issues users have had with LE or similar, based on drone usage in a populated area? I want to use "best practices" and part of that is knowing how strict LE is when they see a drone in the neighborhood.

 

[RW-1]

Depends on that LE ...

Thing is, if you minimize risk, say for going over houses you are not 5-10 feet over them, etc.

If you are flying responsibly, believe me it shows, and they will know it as well should you have an encounter.

 

[lad63]

That's good advice. I have no flying experience so it might make sense for me to stay on my property for a while so I can learn the ropes before venturing far out. I'm leaning toward buying the drone now.

 

[Suhail78]

Don't be afraid dude! As a hobbyist, you can fly in the area you have described. They don't want you flying over dense crowds of people, but and individual person in their house or walking down the street does not constitute a crowd of people. You can certainly fly over the highway, just don't hover over it for an extended period of time. LE is not going to bother you as long as you don't do anything stupid or too risky. So get that drone, go fly, and have fun, they are wonderful machines, and a great joy to operate. Just use common sense, and you'll be good to go homie.

 

[RW-1]

If you have a large enough property, that can work, also check out the area of the boards for making meet ups, getting a few flyers near you together can make for an terrific afternoon, etc.

 

[lad63]

Thanks guys!