Official FAA App

[Robert Smith jr]

It would have been nice for the FAA to say something like "Airports, Heliports and other air facilities", which seems to be what they meant. Flying in my local park has not been a problem, at least not yet. It is 16 Acres, wide open and not very busy.

I was trying to get permission to take some photos and video where I work, I checked the FAA app and it looks like there are about 10 different heliports that I will need to contact.

It would be great if the FAA imposed a minimum altitude where no notification is needed (say 100 - 200 feet). If a helicopter or large plane is flying at that height, that's pretty **** low, but is a decent height for flying UAS imho (watch out for trees!). I'm not saying that this is better than the 400 feet top limit, but perhaps a minimum altitude where notification is not needed would help somewhat. Of course in restricted airspace, you cannot fly at all which I agree with entirely!

 

[JTC]

I'm in a bit of the same position. The community I live in has a private, uncontrolled airport with maybe a flight a day out of it. I'm thinking of just getting a handheld radio and self-announcing on the CTAF frequency every time I fly, as well as monitoring it for any traffic coming in.


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I am sure that at an uncontrolled field the radio would work. Just announce over the proper channel to the traffic that you are flying at an altitude and location.

 

[J&L]

I bet the grass airfield by my house doesn't even monitor the radio unless there flying.

 

[WetDog]

This is a great idea, and would alleviate half of the airport/drone operator conflicts existing right now. While it's not regulatory to have a radio in a lot of airspace in a GA airplane, there are few pilots anymore flying without one.

It is unclear that using an aircraft radio OUTSIDE of a registered aircraft is legal. It probably isn't unless you get a ground station license. They're useful to listen to at times, but I'd avoid transmitting until the FAA says that UAVs really are aircraft in the real sense of the word.