Lots of drones are flying illegally around airports (DroneDJ)

[FlyingHevy]

Lots of drones are flying illegally around airports

I think the methodology is flawed (they didn't check for waivers or authorizations, or even for structure height at flight locations), but it's exactly the kind of press that leads to regulatory outcomes that further restrict our ability to fly (for both pleasure and business). The study itself (here, p. 20 (p. 22 of the PDF)) notes these weaknesses, but without any discussion of them. I operate under a Wide-area-authorization, and all my local flights (every one I've flown, in fact, except one) would be found by this study to be in violation because LAANC doesn't operate at my local airport. I wouldn't care to guess what the ratio of waivers/authorizations is, but mine was incredibly easy to obtain, so I think it's probably not negligible.

 

[Deleted member 114292]

That’s why they did it at Laanc Airport.
My perhaps incorrect understanding is that if the airport has Laanc you must use it.

Nonetheless it’s really not wild speculation and it’s heartbreaking to know that that’s how people behave.

it’s one thing when you’re not near an airport but near an airport inexcusable.

 

[FlyingHevy]

I'm not sure it's correct that you need to use LAANC if you have authorization for the airspace, so long as the authorization applies. I have area-wide authorization for my local county/Air National Guard airport airspace, but that crosses over into class C (at the surface) for our regional airport, and there I need LAANC even if I'm still in the overlap from my class D airspace (because my authorization doesn't apply to the Class C regional airport's airspace). As I read it, even if my local airport gets LAANC my authorization still applies and I don't need flight-by-flight authorization.

LAANC, though, does nothing for waivers, and without some indication of how those relate, the numbers are incomplete, at best.

 

[Deleted member 114292]

That's not what I am saying - if the airspace has LAANC you must use that for authorization.
It think I tried it in a LAANC and was told that.
I much prefer "dronezone" auths as I can get them for months at a time and not one box at time.
My local airport does not have LAANC.