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This is an amazing flight, but is it legal?

Yup. Unless you have the eyes of a WWII fighter pilot ace, you’ve flown out of VLOS by 1/2 mile or so — especially w/smaller-quieter drones. Just looking down at the RC can do it. While it’s technically a violation, you still know essentially where it is, how high it is, where it’s headed.
Even the XSP, which sounds more like an electric lawn mower than a drone, I can easily loose sight of it just by looking away for a sec. I can always hear it though, LOL
 
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You can get a waiver but it involves a certain brand of parachute among other forms to fill out and approvals

A rare exemption
BVLOS, as it’s called, is an important requirement for expanding drone businesses. It’s virtually a given for delivery services. If you can still see where you are sending a package, it’s probably not far enough to be worth sending a drone. But inspections of large spread-out facilities are also prime cases for BVLOS.

The exemption the company received is a piece of FAA regulation called Part 107, which sets the ground rules for small commercial drones. It requires operators to be certified and puts a number of restrictions on what they can do, without a waiver. Part 107 prohibits not only BVLOS, but also flying drones at night or flying them over people, among many other prohibitions.

The FAA has issued just over 4,000 Part 107 waivers since the regulation took effect in August 2016. Of those, just 53 have been waiver to fly beyond line of site. (Nearly 95% of waivers have been for night flights.) So the fast-tracking this waiver is a pretty big deal.

The question is whether this waiver was a one-off, or if the urgency of the pandemic lead to a more flexible, fast-moving approval process at the FAA.
 
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"A helicopter could legally fly down your street at 10' AGL, and be perfectly legal unless 'the flight endangered life or property'. ”

That's truly the bottomline. It’s written somewhere, buried deep from public review. .

I think autorotation only works when an helicopter has a certain minimum altitude. Therefore by flying low they endanger life and property.
 
I 100% agree Dustin is a total idiot and people who subscribe should stop.
He is the one who ruins the hobby for us.
Please let him know we don’t like what he does.
I 100% agree Dustin is a total idiot and people who subscribe should stop.
He is the one who ruins the hobby for us.
Please let him know we don’t like what he does.
Dont like it dont watch. Let people decide on their own what they should do.
 
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I think autorotation only works when an helicopter has a certain minimum altitude. Therefore by flying low they endanger life and property.
You can postulate/rationalize till the cows come home, but it doesn’t work with the FAA. It’s their ball, their rules...
 
§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General

"Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface. Paragraph B states that an aircraft must maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft in congested areas. Paragraph C states that an aircraft must maintain an altitude of 500 feet above the surface in non-congested areas. Over open water or sparsely populated areas, an aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure."

Found this, dont know how accurate it is
 
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§ 91.119 Minimum safe altitudes: General

"Helicopters may be operated at less than the minimums prescribed in paragraph (b) or (c) of this section if the operation is conducted without hazard to persons or property on the surface. Paragraph B states that an aircraft must maintain an altitude of 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a horizontal radius of 2,000 feet of the aircraft in congested areas. Paragraph C states that an aircraft must maintain an altitude of 500 feet above the surface in non-congested areas. Over open water or sparsely populated areas, an aircraft may not be operated closer than 500 feet to any person, vessel, vehicle, or structure."

Found this, dont know how accurate it is
That sounds about right. The thing is, there’s ZERO enforcement. I did helicopter photography in many parts of the US, EU. If I asked a pilot to fly lower, they almost always did, often well under 500’. They knew they shouldn’t go thst low, but we’d be quick be gone. Try reading a tail number from the ground on a moving helicopter.

If an aircraft is flying VFR in Europe and North America, it doesn’t need to file a flight plan. Most helicopters fly under VFR rules. You can file a flight plan as a precaution (e.g. advisable if you do longer over water flights, so that ATC can alert rescue in case you don’t report at your intended destination or a waypoint in time, and they will know approximately where to go looking for you). Under VFR rules it is up to you to keep separation from obstacles, bad weather and other aircraft and to keep out of restricted airspace. Sometimes you need to file a flight plan even if you fly VFR if you want to enter restricted airspace, e.g. Air Defence Identification Zones.

The FAA is a closed shop. Only an FAA inspector can investigate violations. They’ll take time/date/location data from the person filing the complaint—often visiting the scene (road trip!!). They’ll check the nearest airport for any available data, which the FAA will never share with you. All I ever got from the FAA:

“There was a lot of traffic in your area at that time”.

No sh*t Sherlock—that’s why I filed the complaint! It’s a long bureaucratic process. Most of the time there’s no radar tracking and no filed flight plans. After a period of time (months), you’re informed there was no violation—have a nice day. I filed 3 complaints on the Big Island of Hawaii, as did many others. Same results each time...
 
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