Understanding the place you possibly can safely and legally fly your drone is surprisingly troublesome.
Certain, to procure your first (or fifth) drone, acquired your TRUST certificates, or perhaps even your Half 107 certificates, however after flying in your yard for hours, you might be keen to seek out new places close to you to follow flying. Or perhaps you might be touring to a brand new metropolis. So what do you do?
After all, you begin with a Google search: “The place can I fly my drone close to me?” Then, you examine B4UFly for uncontrolled airspace. However even then, you continue to must examine state and native rules.
Do you know that within the US, you possibly can’t fly in a Nationwide Park? The airspace will look clear on most airspace apps, however you would nonetheless get in bother with a park ranger!
Some states, resembling Missouri, enable drone flights of their state parks, whereas others, like Hawaii, ban them.
Most different states have important restrictions on drone flights in state parks, however they permit them underneath sure situations or require an utility upfront.
The issue is all this info shouldn’t be centralized, not at all times correct, and, most significantly, not topic to suggestions from pilots.
Enter FPV Trails. FPVTrails is a free database of particular places the place you possibly can fly, generated by precise pilots. Anybody can add, charge, assessment, and focus on locations to fly.
The user-generated knowledge is overlaid with airspace info resembling FAA UAS facility maps and FRIAs to show spots that aren’t simply pleasant to fly — however are additionally secure and authorized to fly in.
Nevertheless, simply make sure to cross-reference websites with the FAA’s official B4UFly service suppliers, as knowledge can rapidly change (particularly if there’s a Short-term Flight Restriction in place).
FPV Trails has added many distinctive map layers, together with nationwide and state parks, stadiums, and worldwide airports, and is within the means of aggregating college UAS packages and metropolis and state legal guidelines concerning drone flight.
Additionally they provide climate layers and are continuously including new places, together with over 250 within the US alone. These places are freely downloadable in JSON format.
FPV Trails intends to be a free and open platform and will ultimately add premium companies to cowl internet hosting prices.