Flying over empty road. Possibly dumbest question ever.

[vincent228]

I checked the threads and couldnt find this particular question, and also checked the web.

I am no leagl scholar, and dont need to go to jail over a small fee,

Question:
I have to do a shoot for a job.
One of my orbit shots takes me over and across a road.
Here is the question, only because I have recieved umpteen different answers from umpteen different peoplem (not on this forum).

I know there is no flying (directly over people).
I know there is no flying over moving vehicles.

Everything you find on the web has to do with "flying over moving vehicles", which would be a no-no.

Does anyone know what the guidelines would be (since the drone would be in VLOS at all times,
can you cross a road, if you have no traffic on it?

as far as i believe, and can understand, there is no regulation against that, and there really is no legal verbiage that says it straight out.

We are talking a road with a 25 mph speed limit, and its a straight shot, so the road can be watched at all times.

I start my orbit of my POI,
before I allow the drone to fly over the road, I check there are zero vehicles coming, otherwise I pause the drone, and let it hover until no traffic is present. then i would continue my orbit over the road when it is empty.

Can anyone please answer that question for me?

It would put to rest a lot of questions.


Thanks you!

 

[mossphotography]

There is not such thing as a dumb question when it comes to FAA regulations...

The actual law you're looking for is "§ 107.145 Operations over moving vehicles". While the title mentions moving vehicles, the rule is actually about people inside moving vehicles. Wording in the body of the law states: "No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being located inside a moving vehicle unless the following conditions are met:..." and then it goes on to describe the conditions.

Suffice to say that those conditions mirror Operations Over People (OOP) rules. So unless you have a Category 1 OOP compliant drone, you technically can't fly over people in moving cars.

By the way, "over" means "over" when it comes to OOP regulations. Imagine a column of air directly above the person in questions the exact shape of that person. If the drone enters that column, it's over them. If it's not (1" any direction), you're no longer over them. When determining safety mitigations, you should also take into account mechanical failure and it's inevitable flight path after failure. If that takes you into the realm of OOP, you should probably not fly.

This is an RPIC determined mitigation.

This is all assuming you're flying in the U.S.

 

[vincent228]

That is a much better description than i have been getting in other sites. I appreciate you not considering itva stupid question, but I was so confused over it, I felt foolish to not know. Yes I am in the U.S. So just to be clear, if no people are around (which is the case here), and the road has no vehicles that are moving (even accounting for mechanical failure) crossing an empty road is ok?

 

[Capt KO]

You’re all good. Enjoy your flight

 

[Andy9]

It often happens to me that I fly over some local roads which are almost impossible to be seen from the ground.
Once in the air, I only check about the traffic which usually is non or very rare on such roads.
Of course, this is not the case at highways. Flying over highways is absolutely forbidden but it can be noticed from the distance and can't be explained that you suddenly happened to be over it.
I'm from Slovenia/Europe.

 

[Melvoid]

There is not such thing as a dumb question when it comes to FAA regulations...

The actual law you're looking for is "§ 107.145 Operations over moving vehicles". While the title mentions moving vehicles, the rule is actually about people inside moving vehicles. Wording in the body of the law states: "No person may operate a small unmanned aircraft over a human being located inside a moving vehicle unless the following conditions are met:..." and then it goes on to describe the conditions.

Suffice to say that those conditions mirror Operations Over People (OOP) rules. So unless you have a Category 1 OOP compliant drone, you technically can't fly over people in moving cars.

By the way, "over" means "over" when it comes to OOP regulations. Imagine a column of air directly above the person in questions the exact shape of that person. If the drone enters that column, it's over them. If it's not (1" any direction), you're no longer over them. When determining safety mitigations, you should also take into account mechanical failure and it's inevitable flight path after failure. If that takes you into the realm of OOP, you should probably not fly.

This is an RPIC determined mitigation.

This is all assuming you're flying in the U.S.

No dumb questions... just dumb regulations

 

[Harleydude]

Being a professional photographer, I think Vic would've used "Column of light."....<;^)

D