Where to fly legally in San Diego

[yamahu]

Hi, I’m coming to San Diego, CA. I wonder where to fly Mavic Pro Zoom legally. Specially coast side. According B4UFly app there is not much places.

 

[Starz]

Here you go. This guy is in SD. Send him a pm on the rcgroups website. He’s always flying off a beach there somewhere.
IntheTubeDeep's blog - RC Groups

 

[macfawlty]

Well, obviously take a look at AirMap or Hover and determine where the circles are. B4UFly isn't my fav app for scouting. There are lots of them. San Diego airport is in the middle of the city, so SD proper is out of the question. I don’t live there, but the last couple times I flew there, my recommended spot is accessible from the large dirt parking area just up from the Gliderport North of La Jolla in Torrey Pines. You’re right on the cliffs above the beach and adjacent to the Torrey Pines Golf Course. I’ve seen some interesting videos flying over the Los Penasquitos Lagoon. A train goes through there periodically. You can park on Carmel rd. Legality is sketchy as its technically part of the Torrey Pines State Reserve. Some like to fly at La Jolla Cove, but there’s always a lot of people around and the buildings don’t provide as attractive a background as the cliffs in Torrey Pines.

 

[yamahu]

Thanks Mac
Great info !

 

[macfawlty]

The link below this paragraph is my thread from Phantompilots from last year. While the Torrey Pines Nature Reserve does not allow drones, you may still be able to fly adjacent to it from the beach. The Reserve has a stated policy that drones are not allowed. The beach technically is part of that State park. I try to follow the stated rules for parks and other public locations, but I also take some leeway with regards to intent, i.e., if you launch from a sea kayak or boat and don't fly over the Reserve, I'd consider that ok. If you fly from the beach... not so much, but what if you're standing in the water??? It's not always black & white. I will fly in shades of gray depending on the situation, stated rules and public safety.

Sunset at Torrey Pines, La Jolla/San Diego, CA

Plenty of pilots fly around La Jolla Cove, which is legal, but there are seals and birds and lots of people around and I wouldn't be inclined to fly there even though it's legal. If a bird went after it, the bird would be injured by the blades, the drone might fall onto the rocks and a seal decides it looks fishy and takes a bite or it ends up in the ocean and a whale swallows it and dies, washing up on Black's Beach where a naked undergrad from the Scripps Oceanography Institute performs an autopsy with his pen knife, finds your drone inside the whale's belly, checks the registration, identifying you to the media, and you become a meme and known whale killer, a pariah to ichthyologists and environmentalists across the globe and poster child for World Wildlife Fund's fundraising efforts like Don, Jr. 'THE LION KILLER'. And that puts you in some bad company for sure. So... your decision.

 

[Jackcutrone]

Lmao

 

[lertsek]

I used to live on Coronado. Won't be nature-y like La Jolla but you could get some good shots of S.D. with sailboats in the foreground.

 

[macfawlty]

I used to live on Coronado. Won't be nature-y like La Jolla but you could get some good shots of S.D. with sailboats in the foreground.

Coronado is in a NFZ, but there is a seam between NFZ’s further down the peninsula North of Silver Strand Beach.

 

[lertsek]

Coronado is in a NFZ, but there is a seam between NFZ’s further down the peninsula North of Silver Strand Beach.

Thanks macfawlty. I guess North Island makes it a NFZ. I thought they would have opened up the east side since it's a major place for photography of S.D.

 

[macfawlty]

Well, they don't change those NFZ circles around airports and SD airport is right there in town across the bay from Coronado. Funny, I see a lot of military fighter jets flying low close to the coastline in La Jolla.