Grounded by The Ducks

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I was wondering if anyone has come across or been affected by this. Yesterday I tried to fly my drone near my house and the app told me I was in a no-fly zone. I discovered that I live approximately 2.95 miles from Autzen Stadium, where there was a football game. I was grounded by a no-fly zone that appeared suddenly in the app.

What was a little spooky is how close I live to the line. A couple doors down the street, it would have allowed me to take off but would have initiated auto-landing when I hit the geo-fence. (A couple times yesterday my drone was allowing me to take off for whatever reason but then in about a minute, I would hear my tablet say, "AUTO-LANDING"(!) Auto-landing is a phrase that sends chills down my spine.

My research here tells me that this is a legal FAA imposed flight restriction:

"Pursuant to 14 CFR section 99.7, special security instructions, commencing one hour before the scheduled time of the event until one hour after the end of the event. All aircraft operations; including parachute jumping, unmanned aircraft and remote controlled aircraft, are prohibited within a 3NMR up to and including 3000ft AGL of any stadium having a seating capacity of 30,000 or more people where either a regular or post season Major League Baseball, National Football League, or NCAA division one football game is occurring. This NOTAM also applies to Nascar Sprint Cup, Indy Car, and Champ Series races excluding qualifying and pre-race events."


On the map the no-fly zone for the game is larger than the one around the airport. It seems excessive and not very well thought-out. This restriction would have prevented anyone from doing any drone work in the city of Eugene on that Saturday. And yes it's a Saturday but people do drone work on Saturdays.

Anyway ... another thing that surprised me was that DJIGO app applied the no-fly zone without me downloading anything and while I was hooked up in airplane mode. It also seemed to be unlockable.

So anyway, there's this new restriction here. I was just wondering what people think about this. From taking the 107 exam, I don't see why the rules against flying over people, stadiums and sporting events aren't enough? If they want to ban recreational pilots who have not learned the rules about flying over people and VLOS, fine but I have a commercial license, why does the FAA need to keep me 3 miles from a stadium.

It seems, for example, rather excessive to prohibit a drone mapping flight on a construction site a clear two miles away from a stadium just because there is a football game? That seems way overbroad and unnecessary in terms of regulation and serves no "security purpose" whatsoever.
DJI GO 4_20181103_164721.png
 
TFR's are a very real and very serious part of flying. Between NASCAR, Presidential visits, and NFL we have lots of them. Foreflight shows them several days before they become active which is nice.
 
For small drones I think a reasonable limit for security around a sports stadium would be no more than 1/2 mile radius, especially with DJI products with built-in geofencing. The only danger posed is falling into a crowd, unless someone has figured out how to make a nuke that weighs about 4 oz. For manned fixed wing aircraft I can see a wider prohibition being reasonable because of the much higher speed and payload capability. And yet aircraft can pass directly over the stadium as low as 3000 ft., which is about 1/2 nm.

Because I live within 1 mile of a very small low-traffic rural airport, DJI won't even let me take off inside my living room unless I first use a WiFi connection to unlock the restriction for 24 hours.
 
a few ounces of plastic explosives is all it will take to ground us all forever.............
 
For small drones I think a reasonable limit for security around a sports stadium would be no more than 1/2 mile radius, especially with DJI products with built-in geofencing. The only danger posed is falling into a crowd, unless someone has figured out how to make a nuke that weighs about 4 oz. For manned fixed wing aircraft I can see a wider prohibition being reasonable because of the much higher speed and payload capability. And yet aircraft can pass directly over the stadium as low as 3000 ft., which is about 1/2 nm.

Because I live within 1 mile of a very small low-traffic rural airport, DJI won't even let me take off inside my living room unless I first use a WiFi connection to unlock the restriction for 24 hours.
Aerosolized biological or chemical agent..
 

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