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I'd love to get a drone but there's no way in hell I can fly it in NYC airspace. Also, when people travel with a drone, do they actually look up the laws for each place they visit? Do they just wing it? How often do people get caught illegally flying drones? All of that seems like a headache.

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There's a reasonably good FAA sponsored app to help drone owners with this problem: https://www.faa.gov/uas/recreational_fliers/where_can_i_fly/...

That's awesome, and clever name too. Is there anything similar for other places? Canada / Europe?

AirMap mobile app [1] has a very comprehensive database of no fly zones, airports/airfields, and summaries of national rules. It works well in US/Canada and lots of countries in Europe too.

I find it often misses local city or park-level rules so I'd always use it in conjunction with a local jurisdiction's app (if available), as well as checking council websites etc.

[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.airmap.air...

The Aloft app is good, too. It allows you to get automated approvals from LAANC when you are flying near certain airports.

Automated approvals is a killer feature. Will take a look.

I’m sure there are other people here they can provide more detail but in my experience with DJI products, they are generally aware of any FAA mandated restrictions on flight based on the gps coordinates of the drone and will attempt to enforce and/or notify the user while flying.

They seem to be less up to speed on local restrictions. I have a DJI Mavic Air 2 and flew it last year in Colorado with no issues from the software. However I was in complete violation of some local regulations that I wasn’t aware of.

As others have mentioned, there are apps to do a better job of being complete, it’s not really that difficult to deal with but it’s disappointing at times.

What are the local rules where you were in Colorado? I thought it was pretty open here.

It’s probably bog standard regs on private property but it’s actually super locked down on federal and state public lands. (Which i can understand)

Complete no go in Boulder County - https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/parks-and-trails/ru...

Complete no go in RMNP - https://www.nps.gov/romo/learn/management/unmanned_aircraft....

Misc - https://drone-laws.com/drone-laws-in-colorado/

As far as I’m aware while it’s illegal to fly a drone from open space (either OSMP or BoCo), it’s legal from Boulder Parks and Rec. So any of the more urban parks are fine. And most (but not all) of the national forest land is ok as well.

It's not as easy to understand as I'd like. Is the issue noise? Maybe, hard to tell? If it's not noise, a ban in parks seems very excessive. If it is noise, why is there no threshold you could try to be under?

From talking to a ranger here the issue in Boulder's parks (I don't know about elsewhere) is that they disturb nesting raptors. And that seems consistent with the fact that you are allowed to fly drones in the more urban parks just not the mountain ones.

Local regulations for drone are a mess, any authority can put a sentence on their website that restricts drone usage. The one good news is that local authorities cannot restrict flying the drone within their area (but can restrict take off and landing / controlling within the area).

There are numerous apps that try to bridge the gap between the FAA rules (which the dji app does integrate) and the rest.

Agreed, the technology is really impressive, but it makes no sense to own (in Los Angeles) since it's heavily restricted for hobbyists.

(Kind in mind I support safe flying and I'm not advocating for the wild west.)

I bought a drone for a trip to the Azores, and it's a pain to get correct information in English. Despite what multiple blogs claimed, in Portugal you need to submit a signed letter ( either electronically with a compatible electronic certificate or via post) to be allowed to ask for permission for flying in specific areas, which you have to define ( like coordinates, height, etc.). Some areas are completely off limits ( military bases, airports, cities, etc.). If the area includes the seaside, you need an extra authorisation from the coast guard/marine something. That's on top of registering in a site as a drone operator ( the authorisations are asked on another site, and the first one says that "soon" you should be able to ask for authorisation there as well). Fines were severe IIRC.

So, in my brief experience, it's a complicated thing.

DJI app itself has information about flight restrictions

I believe DJI app supposedly query central server for regulatory conformance every time the purchaser requests a flight. Centralized from ground up.

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