Hooray, I have my part 107! Now one of the things I want to concentrate on heavily is building a portfolio. Mostly for the niches I think I'll be targeting this would be mapping/3D model/digital twin type work though I would like to have some pretty photos and video in there too.
I've been trying to be pretty strict in policing myself while flying pre-107, and think I was mostly successful, at least as far as FAA regulations go but there are a number of others to keep in mind. So anyhow I'm wondering if people have go-to places in the Bay Area that avoid any possible transgressions, without needing any authorizations. Here are things that I can think of:
(Yes, technically some of these may be legal to overfly without any special permitting but at least for this early work I want to assume a landing might happen at any point during a flight.)
So that's a long list of gotchas. Recreational flyer forums haven't so far been terribly useful as generally those folks seem pretty unconcerned with following the rules, other than the low hanging fruit of DJI geofencing and B4UFLY. I shudder to think of the list of laws some FPV flights I've seen are breaking flying long distances around the area, over and above of course they're BVLOS, rarely with a VO.
With all that in mind the only places I know of that check all the boxes so far are Cesar Chavez Park next to the Berkeley Marina, and Treasure Island (minding Oracle Park TFRs which carve out a good chunk when there are games on).
Anyway besides the immediate purpose of building up some portfolio material I hope to turn the above list into something of a checklist/tool to determine what authorizations might be needed for a given job.
I've been trying to be pretty strict in policing myself while flying pre-107, and think I was mostly successful, at least as far as FAA regulations go but there are a number of others to keep in mind. So anyhow I'm wondering if people have go-to places in the Bay Area that avoid any possible transgressions, without needing any authorizations. Here are things that I can think of:
- FAA-wise at most would require an automatic LAANC authorization - this is actually probably the least restrictive thing on the list..
- Avoids any National Park Service
- Avoids CA State Parks & Rec land (State Parks, Beaches, Historic Parks, Recreational Areas, Vehicular Recreational Areas, Wilderness, Cultural Preserves, Natural Preserves). Even if allowed in a particular park, you need a permit to film for commercial purposes
- Avoids CA state highways
- Avoids any wildlife protected areas
- Avoids residential areas (don't want to annoy anyone or worse give them cause to lodge a privacy complaint, there's a statute in CA covering that)
- Avoids city & county parks restrictions (I'm aware of such for San Francisco city parks, Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, Santa Clara County Parks, Midpeninsula Regional Open Space Preserves, Napa city parks)
- Avoids National Marine Sanctuaries (e.g. Monterey Bay which is entire coast from just south of Pacifica all the way to Cambria)
- Avoids CA dept. of Fish & Wildlife lands
- Avoids anywhere the drone would be difficult/illegal/dangerous to retrieve if it comes down
- Avoids areas with lots of people (read: potential complainants/witnesses)
- Avoids anywhere there are any other county/city/town drone bans
- Avoids anywhere that has been known to be problematic in the past (however legal it may be)
(Yes, technically some of these may be legal to overfly without any special permitting but at least for this early work I want to assume a landing might happen at any point during a flight.)
So that's a long list of gotchas. Recreational flyer forums haven't so far been terribly useful as generally those folks seem pretty unconcerned with following the rules, other than the low hanging fruit of DJI geofencing and B4UFLY. I shudder to think of the list of laws some FPV flights I've seen are breaking flying long distances around the area, over and above of course they're BVLOS, rarely with a VO.
With all that in mind the only places I know of that check all the boxes so far are Cesar Chavez Park next to the Berkeley Marina, and Treasure Island (minding Oracle Park TFRs which carve out a good chunk when there are games on).
Anyway besides the immediate purpose of building up some portfolio material I hope to turn the above list into something of a checklist/tool to determine what authorizations might be needed for a given job.