READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY A DRONE IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY

READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY A DRONE IN SAN DIEGO COUNTY

Before you purchase your first drone write down the top five reasons you want the aircraft. After writing down your reasons conduct research to see if anything you’ve written down can be legally accomplished. Chances are great that at least a couple of your reasons don’t pal around with the law.

No one buys a drone with the purpose of having a bad time but unfortunately flying a drone, if done responsibly, isn’t very fun. It’s enjoyable, but not fun.

You cannot fly within 5 miles of an airport.

If you go commercial (part 107) you can fly in controlled airspace. B4UFLY is a free app designed primarily for recreational flyers. Check it out to see where you can or cannot fly.

If you live in a metropolitan area like San Diego proper, San Francisco, Dallas, Chicago don’t buy a drone to fly around large buildings or attempt to peep into windows. A drone works off a radio transmitter. Once it goes around the side of a building and loses connection with the controller it will fly home or land. Most will crash on the way home.

You cannot fly at night

You can only fly 400’ in the air

Exceptions apply but for the most part a drone cannot legally fly higher than 400 feet. If you go higher you can get fined by the FAA, or worse, be involved in an incident with manned aircraft.

You cannot fly over cars that are moving

That means you can’t fly above a street where cars are moving. Depending on where you live that might be almost everywhere around you.

You cannot fly at any school

You cannot fly over people

If you want to fly where people are visible, forget it. They’ll call the police. Flying directly over people is illegal. While flying near people is okay if you’re authorized to fly in that airspace, people don’t know that and so they call the police.

Drones are like loud music coming out of a passing car. It sounds good only to the person in the car. It sounds like crap to everyone outside the car. A drone is cool if you’re the pilot but other people only see a geek.

Mistake number one of new drone pilots is going to the park for the first flight. People will manufacture fear via the “what might happen” factor. If children are near they’ll claim the drone might fall and hit their kid.

If they are unattractive they’ll claim you’re spying to make themselves feel good. Almost no one claiming a privacy violation has a body type appealing to a mirror. These people see a drone in the sky and assume its looking at them. They don’t know most drones can’t zoom or that at 75 feet most people are identifiable by sex and race but individual features are too far away.

WHY YOU SHOULD BUY A DRONE

·         Aerial photography.

·         If you plan to fly where people aren’t around.

·         If you plan to fly in remote locations

·         If you are more than 5 miles from an airport

·         If you plan to fly outside of a city or suburb.

·         If you never fly around your neighborhood, parks, wildlife areas or beaches where people are visible.

·         If you plan to get a part 107 license and fly commercially.

Otherwise you’re buying into a fad. You’re buying something you’ll find out later isn’t as fun as you hoped that might lead to police contact.