ScottF

I'll be at Xponential. Hope to see you guys there.

Beautiful! Well done!

Welcome @TriniDP. I'm sure you'll find a lot of good information in here to help you on our path.

@Dustin Wise Great job forwarding the information from AirMap. What AirMap has done on their site will confuse everyone out there. You've done a great thing here by helping to improve our community by making this information available to the rest of us. Thanks

Welcome to the group @Scott C Burns. There's a lot of experience in these forums and we're glad you're here to add yours.

@JBR LIFE Photography Thanks for posting these details. DJI's firmware is the THE most frustrating part about using their equipment. You would think they would have better quality assurance. This is why many people consider them to be an expensive toy manufacturer, not a professionals drone. But, at the same time, they have all of our business, so they must be doing something that is just better than the competition.

@Av8Chuck based on your comment above, I think you're taking my post a little more literally than I intended. My intent was more inline with the other comment you made when you said, "You made a valid point that hobbyists probably wouldn't think about running into a skydiver over a stadium..." Again, the point I was trying to make was more along the lines of, "all pilots need to check the airspace for TFRs before they fly using one of several apps that we've all talked about in these forums (AirMap, Skyward, etc)" and here's an extreme example". Thanks for poking at my post to force me to clarify.

Unfortunately, yes. http://bfy.tw/Exai

Here's another example that hobbyists probably don't think about when flying their drone near a stadium.

Hey Bill, you may be interested in this YouTube segment for a STEM education event that we supported in a rural area of Colorado. It's a long video segment (just linking to the segment on drones) and I'd encourage you to take the time to watch the other pieces. My former aviation battalion was even featured in this STEM event. Eads has a population of a few hundred people, so to have this much turn out for it was pretty awesome. Good luck in your STEM program. Let me know if there is anyone I can put you in touch with to share lessons learned.

@Spitfire76 is correct. If the airspace you were flying in was controlled airspace (e.g. Class E surface, Class D) then the FAA MUST approve your flight. The only approved way of getting that approved (until LAANC) is available at your airport, is to submit your request using their online web portal. https://www.faa.gov/uas/request_waiver/request_operate_controlled_airspace/ (On this page, you can select either Authorization or Waiver.) If you are Part 107 qualified and the airspace you are flying in is UNcontrolled airspace (even if it is within 5 SM of the airport), you do not need to contact the airport manager. Contacting the airport manager is only a requirement if you are a hobbyist.

@B Ervin Welcome to the community forums. We hope that you find a lot of good information here. Feel free to search for questions in the forum and if you don't find the exact question you're looking for, pose your own. There are a wide range of experience levels in here, but everyone is willing to share their experience and opinions.

@KirkI agree with you; LAANC doesn't look like it will help me in the near term (next couple of months) since the UAS Facilities Maps that they have published (which will lead up to the LAANC approval areas), let alone the beta test sites, are not in areas that I need approval in. I submitted via the FAA Airspace request website on 18 March 2017 for Class E surface and Class D near KAPA. The Class E surface controlled airspace near KAPA should NOT be a difficult approval process. But it covers 86 square miles of territory that I consistently have to turn work down for. Last week, I turned down 4 jobs because they all fell within this Class E sfc boundary. @LarryB We're all really hopeful that the FAA will be able to get this Fast tracked through Congress. But, if you are a commercial operator, trying to make a go at this, I recommend you contact your Congressional representatives. I've done my part by having three conversations with local Denver FSDO reps, a conversation with an FAA rep in a regional office in Texas, and finally contacting my U.S. Congressional representatives and senators. In turn, they opened up a congressional inquiry for me. It only takes a few minutes to jump on to their website and tell them your story and how it's affecting you and your business via their online forms. As a first step, you can find out who to contact by checking out this website: U.S. Congressional Representative and U.S. Senators A couple of button clicks later, you too can make your voice heard.

Amen brother! I have similar experience with several friends that work for FAA and they all say that it is the most dysfunctional organization they have ever worked for. In fact, I contacted my U.S. Senator and they opened a Congressional Inquiry into the FAA because of the ridiculously slow pace of getting airspace approved. And, I agree with @Av8Chuck that we should not be giving the FAA a pass by not expecting them to deliver something they have been promising for YEARS, but until they do, I stick by my statement (and @Ed O'Grady's example) that we need to be professional and know how the Airspace works. There are several companies out there that are trying to provide the features that we all want to have and trying to fast track LAANC is one way that the FAA is trying to stop the bleeding.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree then. I don't believe FAA Part 107 pilots can't simultaneously complain that the FAA is not giving us any respect while at the same time expecting us not to know all the details that manned aviation pilots know - which includes understanding how the FAA publications work. My point is that knowing this stuff better than another Part 107 pilot could possibly give you an advantage for your customers in providing them options of when you may and may not be able to shoot in a particular location. Not to mention, keep you from violating FAA rules. I'm also a software engineer (as well as an aerospace engineer, and a retired Army helicopter pilot) and I know that trying to satisfy all the cases that we're talking about here is challenging. Eventually the software should be able to do what you're asking, but consider all of the things you're talking about. Airspace dimensions, airspace altitude, time of day (effective time of airspace), weather (visibility, cloud ceilings), TFRs, visual line of sight, etc. All of these combined make for a complex answer. At some point, the UAV pilot needs to be a professional and understand all the variations and not rely on a computer to simply spit out the answer. That's also why manned aviation still has a man flying the plane - you can't program the computer for every scenario.