airmap app lists every nearby school???

Lapeer20m · Mar 25, 2017

airmap lists every nearby school. How is the relevant to UASs?

Skyler · Mar 26, 2017

I believe Airmap shows schools, hospitals, and power plants as a way of cautioning us that flying near them may get us unwanted attention. There's not really any specific regulations against flying near them, but schools often have children playing outside so people get paranoid about their kids getting filmed or hurt by drones. Power plants are shown because flying near them makes law enforcement suspicious of terrorist activities. I'm not sure why all hospitals (which includes retirement homes with medical care facilities) are shown even if they don't have helipads -- maybe it's for the same anti-terrorist suspicion reasons as power plants.

rydfree · Mar 26, 2017

Maybe the MRI equipment along with other wiFi , cell repeaters , two way radio transmitters etc are the problem they are trying to warn you about ? I know I can fly fine everywhere around my house but can't get within 1/4 mile of the hospital without a bad signal message .
The schools and power plants are just common sense to stay away from .

Lapeer20m · Mar 26, 2017

rydfree said:
Maybe the MRI equipment along with other wiFi , cell repeaters , two way radio transmitters etc are the problem they are trying to warn you about ? I know I can fly fine everywhere around my house but can't get within 1/4 mile of the hospital without a bad signal message .
The schools and power plants are just common sense to stay away from .

Aren't schools great places to fly? When the building is empty, we are left with giant open spaces. Where I live, school grounds are treated much like public parks. There are baseball, soccer, and football fields which are open to the public, unoccupied, and wide open spaces most of the year.

Skyler · Mar 27, 2017

Lapeer20m said:
Aren't schools great places to fly? When the building is empty, we are left with giant open spaces. Where I live, school grounds are treated much like public parks. There are baseball, soccer, and football fields which are open to the public, unoccupied, and wide open spaces most of the year.

1. It depends on the local school district. Some or more strict than others when it comes to usage of the property during non-school hours.
2. Timing is everything when it comes to schools. Drone flying over a school during school hours is not recommended. During non-school hours it might be OK in your area.

Either way, Airmap isn't trying to tell us that schools are always forbidden. They're just letting us know where the schools are so we can use our local knowledge and common sense to decide if and when we might fly near them.