Good places to fly around St Louis, Missouri?

ash2020 · May 17, 2019

BTW. We ended up staying in Creve Coeur, which is much nearer Mercy. I'll certainly check out Laumeier. I figure that anaverage of $10 per trip by Uber, there's not much point spending $300 on a hire car.

ash2020 · May 22, 2019

I'm really confused. We're staying at the Drury Inn at Creve Coeur and the FAA map shows that we're just outside two no fly zones. However, the B4UFly app shows we're in a NFZ. Which do I trust? I'd like to put the bird up tonight at dusk.

brett8883 · May 22, 2019

ash2020 said:
I'm really confused. We're staying at the Drury Inn at Creve Coeur and the FAA map shows that we're just outside two no fly zones. However, the B4UFly app shows we're in a NFZ. Which do I trust? I'd like to put the bird up tonight at dusk.

Throw away the B4UFLY app. The rules just changed and it hasn't been updated to reflect this.

AirMap is really good and fast. This is the FAAs actual map program ArcGIS Web Application
If in doubt use this but it’s not as fast as AirMap which is reliable.

brett8883 · May 22, 2019

Looks like you are just outside the STL class B so you are good to go. Thumbswayup

ash2020 · May 22, 2019

Thanks so much for that Brett. I've got Airmap so I'll trust that. My wife's convalescing and I'm staring at the walls so I want to try and get out and fly, even if its only a shot of the hotel roof! I'll have to be careful not to ascend past all the windows!
I thought it looked safe in this immediate area. We've got another storm coming in later so I'll try before that.
Thanks again.

ash2020 · May 23, 2019

Hey Brett. Sorry to keep bugging you. Does it look like the Botanical Gardens will be OK?

brett8883 · May 23, 2019

ash2020 said:
Hey Brett. Sorry to keep bugging you. Does it look like the Botanical Gardens will be OK?

Yea it’s not in controlled airspace but you’ll want to make sure there isn’t a Cardinals baseball game happening when you want to fly.

St. Louis Cardinals Schedule

The Official Site of Major League Baseball

www.mlb.com

The games that say “vs” then the opponent team logo are the home games you have to be mindful of. The other games are away so it doesn’t matter. Next game isn’t till Friday so you’ve got a nice window.

You gotta check out the sculpture park too! That’s gonna the best one to do.

ash2020 · May 23, 2019

When we were at the Botanical Gardens I asked very politely but was told a definite "not allowed here". I didn't push it as my wife was very tired and wanted to get back to the hotel.

brett8883 · May 23, 2019

ash2020 said:
When we were at the Botanical Gardens I asked very politely but was told a definite "not allowed here". I didn't push it as my wife was very tired and wanted to get back to the hotel.

Who told you that?

brett8883 · May 24, 2019

Oh you said you asked. Well they can tell you not to take off or land there if they want but you could have taken off from another part of the park and flown over there but I understand you aren’t wanting to push things.

I’m telling ya though the Lumier Sculpture Park is where it’s at. They dont have like admissions or anything like that there it’s just a big wide open Park with tons or cool sculptures. I don’t know if you guys are up for a lot of walking but there are tons of “hidden” sculptures in the woods so the drone would be good for staking them out and then you can decide which ones to walk to

ash2020 · May 31, 2019

Back home in the UK now.
Didn't have any problem at all going through airport security, either on the way there or back. I discharged the batteries to less than 50% but I didn't need to because no-one asked anything about it. I just put the Mavic and separate battery (in a plastic bag) in the tray, no problems at all.
My wife's surgery was a fantastic success but my Mavic flying was a flop. We only got out to one site, a bridge over the Mississippi. Didn't get to the sculpture park and couldn't fly in the Botanic Gardens. I did one flight at the back of the hotel but I was worried in case anyone thought I was spying into the rooms!
Here's the best I could manage, rubbish film but quite exciting to fly, it was very windy indeed over the river.

Thanks for all the advice Brett.

brett8883 · May 31, 2019

ash2020 said:
Back home in the UK now.
Didn't have any problem at all going through airport security, either on the way there or back. I discharged the batteries to less than 50% but I didn't need to because no-one asked anything about it. I just put the Mavic and separate battery (in a plastic bag) in the tray, no problems at all.
My wife's surgery was a fantastic success but my Mavic flying was a flop. We only got out to one site, a bridge over the Mississippi. Didn't get to the sculpture park and couldn't fly in the Botanic Gardens. I did one flight at the back of the hotel but I was worried in case anyone thought I was spying into the rooms!
Here's the best I could manage, rubbish film but quite exciting to fly, it was very windy indeed over the river.

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Thanks for all the advice Brett.

Glad to hear everything went well with your wife! That’s the important part.

Wow I think that video is great! You make it look much better then it is in real life! I have never ever seen or heard of a sail boat in the Mississippi. That must be a once in a life time thing!

ash2020 · May 31, 2019

Haha! The river was much bigger than I thought it would be, and I can see where the name "Mississippi Mud Pie" comes from.

DrScooter · Jan 11, 2021

Paul StL said:
I saw this on Saturday but didn't have time to respond. Anyway, Westport is closer to Mercy than Fenton but not by much. Both areas are classic American suburbia. As far as where to fly, downtown may be prohibitive with the Arch grounds off-limits and the possibility of baseball but there's still other downtown areas: Soulard (Anheuser-Busch is there), Central West End, SLU campus, amongst others. The Arch may still be a possibility if you launched off of park grounds and stayed over the Mississippi River. As mentioned, Forest Park is one of the largest city parks in the country. It's actually larger than Central Park in NY. It's on the western edge of the city but you can still get nice vistas of downtown. There's a beautiful Mormon temple five minutes from Mercy Hospital. There's only 200 or so of those in the world. Non-Mormons can't access the grounds directly but plenty of places around it to launch from. Laumeier Sculpture Park (Laumeier Sculpture Park) is closer to Fenton but only five or six miles from Westport. As the name suggests, it's a park with a lot of sculptures in it. Castlewood State Park is nearby (8 miles) with beautiful vistas of the Meramec River. St. Charles, MO is five miles from Westport, along the Missouri River with an old town area that would be cool to fly around. Thirty miles west of Mercy is Missouri wine country with a lot of beautiful vistas of the Missouri River and the wineries along them. There're other places, these are just a few I've thought of. BTW, I'm in St. Louis, actually in Town & Country like Brett (was). If you have any questions, let me know.

I saw this, I know old post. New to Drones, in St. Louis myself photo hobby background, I find it not all that easy to find out what you can and can't do. I found enough to get started but staying legal seems confusing sometimes. When you ask "can I fly here" and someone tells you "probably" I just don't know other droner's so I have learned vicariously.