Who owns the airspace?

[SoccerRef12]

I understand about no fly zones, airports, national parks, flying over people, etc. If you launch your Spark from your back yard, who owns the airspace over the neighborhood?

 

[I B Spectre]

As I understand it, the airspace belongs "to the people", aka, administered by the government. In this case, the FAA occupies the entire field of regulation. However, state and local governments can initiate legislation that may prohibit taking off and landing from certain areas (i.e., state parks and forests, managed lands, etc.). I have read of rules that prohibit the capturing of images of people on their property on which they have "a reasonable expectation of privacy". There are prohibitions against flying in restricted airspace, over power plants, prisons and the like. It's all still a work in progress, but those who ignore the existing rules or push the envelope that some may perceive as dangerous or annoying will have repercussions on us all. Just because a local governmental entity passes an ordinance regarding restrictions on drones does not mean it would stand up in court, but I wouldn't want to be the test case.

 

[silent service drone]

In Georgia it is 87 feet above a person's home.

 

[sparkey44]

In Georgia it is 87 feet above a person's home.

I read the same thing somewhere. I think it was a court case.

 

[Earthman]

It’s not a question of “owning” the airspace. The FAA regulates it all in the USA. See link and map below.

Local municipalities can regulate the ground surface within public lands to prevent taking off and landing, which is within their legal rights. However, I assume that it’s still legal to fly into and over a park down to but not including the ground surface assuming they regulate the ground. Of course, if they challenge you and confiscate your drone, you’ll spend more in legal fees getting it back than it’s worth, so you lose even if you ”win.”

Local municipalities are also trying to establish minimum set backs (typically 200-ft) from private property for privacy reasons, but I don’t know that this is legal since it seems difficult to enforce, will interfere with legal commercial UAS operations, and it seems a lot like regulating airspace to me. However, I’m no attorney and I don’t have oodles of money to waste, so I’m not going to challenge this. Besides, I think the privacy issue will get settled once Amazon and other large commercial entities are using the airspace below 400-ft to make deliveries, etc. At that point, local municipalities will be fighting the Feds and companies with deeper pockets than the local municipalities, so maybe I don’t have to worry about it.

I don’t know the legal basis if any that state and federal parks are using to prevent people from flying drones within the parks. I suppose they may be able to regulate taking off and landing or get the FAA to issue a permanent TFR for the park.

Here’s the FAA’s airspace map:

Airspace Guidance for Small UAS Operators | UAV Expert News

The FAA Safety Team has released Notice Number: NOTC8209, the Airspace Guidance for small UAS Operators (sUAS).

www.uavexpertnews.com

 

[Northwood Mediaworks]

In Canada its public unless in some sort of controlled/classified airspace. (similar designations like those of the FAA)

This below was written in 2017... Clearing The Air Around Air Space Rights - Real Estate and Construction - Canada

The law in Canada is that a property owner owns only so much of the air space that can be reasonably occupied or used in connection with the land below. Practically speaking that means a landowner has no remedy at law for the occasional use of the airspace over the landowner's property by planes, drones, or helicopters using the airspace fleetingly and far above the property. However, with respect to the interference caused by overhanging tower cranes, and in particular the swinging of crane booms through adjacent landowner's airspace, there have traditionally been two legal remedies for impacted landowners – an action for trespass and an action for nuisance.

So remaining at a reasonable altitude so as not to be a nuisance makes sense.

 

[Earthman]

In Canada its public unless in some sort of controlled/classified airspace. (similar designations like those of the FAA)

This below was written in 2017... Clearing The Air Around Air Space Rights - Real Estate and Construction - Canada

The law in Canada is that a property owner owns only so much of the air space that can be reasonably occupied or used in connection with the land below. Practically speaking that means a landowner has no remedy at law for the occasional use of the airspace over the landowner's property by planes, drones, or helicopters using the airspace fleetingly and far above the property. However, with respect to the interference caused by overhanging tower cranes, and in particular the swinging of crane booms through adjacent landowner's airspace, there have traditionally been two legal remedies for impacted landowners – an action for trespass and an action for nuisance.

So remaining at a reasonable altitude so as not to be a nuisance makes sense.

This doesn’t seem like a clearly written law since there are so many subjective words; i.e., words that will mean different things to different people. These include the following:

“only so much,”
“reasonably occupied,”
”occasional use,”
”fleetingly,”
“far above,” and
“interference.”

I’m no lawyer but I can see just about everyone arguing over the meaning of these words in a dispute. I hope the originally quoted text is someone’s description of the law - not the actual law.

 

[Spark 317]

I read the same thing somewhere. I think it was a court case.

Perhaps this is what you read.

United States vs. Causby.

It concerns the military flying over personal property at 83 feet and the disruption of a farmers business in 1946.

I read a comment once from a Canadian drone pilot a couple of years ago when they were rolling out the rules that anything above your shoe laces is controlled airspace.

I thought it was humorous. On the ground, it's yours verses 2" in the air, and then it's their airspace.

He may have been streching it, but you never know when you get down to the nitty gritty bits of the law.

 

[I B Spectre]

Good read on the subject, Spark 317.

FAA regs have typical quasi-nebulous verbiage such as "congested area" as part of the requirement to stay at least 1,000 feet above the highest obstacle within a 2,000-foot radius of your airplane's position. In non-congested areas, you must stay 500 feet above the surface. Helicopters are required to stay at least 500 feet above the surface. It's more detailed than that, but that's the gist of it. Basically, they've provided a 100 ft. buffer between the lowest normal operating altitude and airspace for drone operation. These are minimum VFR altitudes.