NEW YORK – Bought a drone, and want to fly it legally, but have no idea where to do that? A new map created by drone hobbyists and enthusiasts aims to be an atlas, laying out the legal landscape for piloting unmanned vehicles.
Called simply AirMap, the project is a collaboration between Ben Marcus, who created the NoFlyZone registry for people who don’t want drones buzzing around their houses, and Gregory McNeal, a professor of law and public policy at Pepperdine. Available now in beta form, the AirMap takes user input and regulation changes into account, creating a durable map of which sections of sky are currently safe and legal for drones to fly in.
It’s easier to explain how AirMap works with an example of how the current system doesn’t. If a person wanted to legally fly a drone in New York City this weekend, where do they start? Watching December’s “Know Before You Fly” PSA to figure out if it’s okay, an eager and law-abiding pilot could figure out that they should fly below 400 feet, stay within the line-of-sight, and avoid stadiums. But since that PSA was released, the FAAchanged the rules, making 500 feet the acceptable norm, and they’ve granted more legal exemptions for how and where commercial drone users can fly.
Armed with this information, our hypothetical drone pilot plans to stick below 500 feet, and they want to avoid both stadiums and airports. To make absolutely sure their flight is okay, they turn to the FAA website, and see a temporary flight restriction over New York, to keep the sky safe for “VIP movement.” Here’s what that looks like: http://www.popsci.com/airmap-sky-atlas-drone-users
