how do you find out if its legal or illegal to fly somewhere

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How do you even find out if there is something that prohibits you from flying somewhere?

is there any protections as a citizen you can have in case there is an accident? im just wondering here as i dont know and appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.
 
Re: how do you find out if its legal or illegal to fly somew

There are many local "laws" about what is permitted use of the local grounds.
Contact the local governing agency, and the local building or zoning departments
might be able to give you some pointers in the right direction.

For private property, contact the owner of the property, which you can usually
determine at the local building permit offices.

Local, county, and state parks and various kinds of preserves usually have rules
prohibiting radio controlled flying objects. Check posted signs and rules, and ask
at any controlled entrance. Even if there is no controlled access or posted rules,
there still can easily be rules and laws (and penalties) that would apply.

For use of the airspace, the FAA (or military) usually has jurisdiction, and the airspace
maps for pilots usually list all the restricted and controlled areas, and there are some
general rules for using the rest of the airspace. There are highways in the sky, and
aircraft can be almost anywhere. Often local police and news people seem to
get away with violating the general airspace laws... but they have the guns...

Clearly, creating a hazard to air traffic, or to ground activities, is taken seriously.
Flying near crowds or children could easily be considered hazardous behavior.

For example, flying near a freeway might create a hazard if cars slow or stop to look.
 
Re: how do you find out if its legal or illegal to fly somew

Migmon said:
How do you even find out if there is something that prohibits you from flying somewhere?
Usually i subscribe to the easier to apologize than ask permission but in this case what if you were to take off say in chinatown in seattle and fly around? can you get in trouble with johnny law? is there a website you can go to for this stuff? ive done a little bit of digging but its overwhelming.

is there any protections as a citizen you can have in case there is an accident? im just wondering here as i dont know and appreciate your thoughts and suggestions.

As an Airline Pilot I can perhaps help you answer some of your questions.

Here is a hard rule I would not break:
Don't ever fly near any airport, heliport, port, cargo facility or federal facilities of any kind at all, I would stay at least 5 miles away from anything federal, official etc. This is serious, all you need is a ramp worker or someone to repot you and you will be heavily questioned and who knows what else.

In addition as a rule of thumb, I stay away from populated areas and limit my flights to 400 feet. I always see these videos of phantoms and other quads flying at the beach and other places where is a heavy traffic of people, maybe I am too old and too careful but the least I want is for my hobby to land on someone else's head.

I enjoy my fights the most when I am sure I cannot create any harm to nothing and nobody.

Hope this helps.
 

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