Absolutely, getting to know your local FAA reps FSDO and ATC is paramount. What I have experienced recently is that the ATC cannot give you directly the LOU anymore. The FAA regional office gets it for some reason. But if the ATC still has to sign off on it. So if they get to know you and understand that you are not a fly by night operation they will be more likely to support the LOU when the regional office comes to them. Even though the regional office does this I find that if the tower already has been informed in advance then they cansign off on it sooner, then if they get a notification that "Joe Blow" wants to fly his drone for hire in their airspace. I find that the more the FAA is informed on your operation the better it is in the long run.
Hmmm. So we really don't know whether it's 5 nautical or statute miles and we're not quite sure who to call. And the b4ufly app doesn't list the phone numbers of who to call, and we're not sure whether it's the tower or the FBO or the "management".... What can possibly go wrong, eh? Is it really this bad in say, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand you wonder? Andy
For informational purposes I am doing the Embry Riddle Drone course to see what kind of info they are teaching to the noivices. It has some decent insight such as below. Good Day! For those interested, some new Q&A have been posted in the "Ask the Expert" area; excellent questions! One of the questions sent in asked how five (5) miles from an airport is measured. I thought it important to tell you why I take the approach presented in the video. FAA Notice N8900.313 for hobby/recreational users refers to 5 miles (interpreted as 5 statute miles) from the airport. Many operators use the single point airport (or aerodrome) reference point (ARP), which is the geometric center of all the usable runways on the airport, to determine their distance from the airport (see http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/AERO/arpcomp/arpframe.html). For a small airport, this might work okay. However, for a large airport with long runways (such as KMWH addressed in the video), using the ARP can bring a mile or more of difference into the picture as to how close you get to an active runway. This is why I refer to the closest runway point of your desired UAS operating area for your planning measurements. Additionally, a commercial UAS operator pursuing a 333 Exemption or a public UAS operator pursuing a COA will not be approved for operations within 5 nautical miles of an airport (nautical - not statute) without a certificated pilot (Sport/Private/Commercial) at the controls and airport authority approval (www.faa.gov). It is because of this 'statute' versus 'nautical' mile difference that I default to 5 nautical miles (the greater distance of the two) so that everyone flying a UAS in the NAS is operating from the same baseline. The FAA is aware of the statute versus nautical mile discrepancy; safety of flight requirements should be consistent for all concerned.
As I suspected, the units of statute and nautical are intermixed. And 5 nm is 5.75 sm. Plus if you use the neared point of a runway, that really makes things interesting. But given that the FAA is aware of the discrepancy, you do have to wonder why they allowed it to happen? Also, given that DJI has a built-in database of all airports so that it can "enforce" no fly zones, you wonder what *they* are measuring and from what. The frustrating thing is that this is not a hard problem. There is only one authority to deal with with: The FAA. Pick your units of distance. Pick your reference points. Publish the decisions (rather than not even mention the units in FAA Notice N8900.313!). You're done. Thus one has to wonder why the above has not happened? Andy.
The meaning of "Notify". I was under the FALSE impression that the requirement to "notify" ATC was not a request for permission, but an announcement of intention. Wrong. Check out: https://learn.canvas.net/courses/941/discussion_topics/22554 . This explains that: Important.
I was also under that same impression, Mike. Not even with the most extreme stretch of the imagination is the word "notify" semantically equivalent to "request permission." See http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/notify : to tell (someone) officially about something. "Notify" and "request permission" are simply not the same thing. The FAA should never have used the word "notify" in the first place. If appears that the FAA is slipping this change in via the its after-the-fact "interpretation" of what they really wished they'd written. The real concern, apart from this less-than-obvious way of amending such an important topic, is that there several other documents out there which, on their face, have no hint of "request permission," so an innocent, law-abiding, model aircraft pilot is going to be blindsided when they discover that "notify" does not mean "notify." Andy.
They should have been more specific. I always figured that it would be unacceptable to fly in certain areas near an airport and just notifying would not make any sense. If I want to fly 1/2 a mile off the approach end of an active runway. I imagine there would be objection to call up tower stating I will conduct UAS ops from sfc-400 ft 1/2 mile from the runway would get an objection as high performance traffic on 3 degree glide slope would be 150 feet above the runway at a half mile.
We are waiting for some COAs to clear, current time is between 60 and 90 days after application. Initially we attempted to gain permission from the tower to fly close to a couple airports and after some discussion with the tower managers and the head of the COA authority for the Southeast, it was made clear that any commercial operations that is limited by the blanket COA granted with a 333 exemptions requires an additional COA for each specific location. Obtaining an additional blanket COA that would only require the towers sign off is not an option. The blanket COA granted with a 333 exemptions states the following: "C. Flight Planning Requirements. Note: For all UAS requests not covered by the conditions listed below, the exemption holder may apply for a new Air Traffic Organization (ATO) Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) at https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/external/uas/portal.jsp This COA will allow small UAS (55 pounds or less) operations during daytime VFR conditions under the following conditions and limitations: (1)At or below 200 feet AGL; and (2)Beyond the following distances from the airport reference point (ARP) of a public use airport, heliport, gliderport, seaplane base and military airports listed in the Airport/Facility Directory, Alaska Supplement, or Pacific Chart Supplement of the U.S. Government Flight Information Publications. a)5 nautical miles (NM) from an airport having an operational control tower; or b)3 NM from an airport having a published instrument flight procedure, but not having an operational control tower; or c)2 NM from an airport not having a published instrument flight procedure or an operational control tower; or d)2 NM from a heliport, gliderport or seaplane base" Man, it's almost a full time job just keeping up with all the required exemptions, certificates, insurance, and now local rules and regs. But I still love my job. Flying a camera for a living is tough to beat.