Some of the problems we run into with LAANC

[Aerial Edge]

One of the other threads about Class D airspace and Vic Moss response had me thinking about a couple of things. LAANC is great for the guy doing a mapping job, but can be a pain if you are covering a large amount of ground in a short period of time. Flying power lines becomes problematic when you can only request so many grids at 1 time. Airhub seems to be the easier system to use, it is just very buggy trying to get a power line section approved. Air map works most of the time but stops you from approving too many grids at a time. Since depending on weather conditions you are not certain how long you will take to transition an area. Since we cover a lot of ground there are times when we do not have internet or you run into problems trying to cancel 1 approval to get another. Sometimes flying 5 poles will cross 3 grids at an angle. I have found that sometimes we can get an entire area done by requesting slightly higher then the grid altitude and getting a manual approval. To be honest it is almost easier to get approval when LAANC is not involved. Many times we put in the entire flight area with a KML of the power lines and tell them we expect a week to do them all, many times we have the approval in 1-3 days for 2 weeks or more. Many times the Power Poles are 150 foot in a 50 foot grid, so it is manual approval on those and LAANC on all the others, add in Weather days and wind and it can become a pain quick.

I figured we needed a thread where we can talk about some of the issues with LAANC that we run into, and maybe we can improve upon things in the future.

By the way Vic Moss thank you for your Informative post and what you do for us that make a living in this industry.

Dave

 

[CactusJackSlade]

Very good points, nothing to add at the moment, but will be watching this thread.

 

[dangerd]

Why not make multiple LAANC request in advance?

 

[Heed]

This is a great thread to start as I am working my first non-LAANC request in Class D. Supposedly LAANC is coming to this area as it shows up in Airmap.com and states "coming soon". Of course in Fed speak, soon could be 5 years.

But even if LAANC was operational for this location currently, I would still need an airspace authorization as the building at hand is 160 feet tall in a grid square delineated as 100' on the UAS facility map and Airmap.com.

800' to the east are two buildings 210' and 240' tall.

I was also wondering how long this would take, but thinking it won't take that long based on your post.

 

[Florida Drone Supply]

I personally have had good luck with Skyward.io and have had no issues with the maximum number of grid boxes. I also like that it gives you a printable PDF for your authorization document so you can have that on location or in your files.