[Intro] Hey everybody, this is Dave from Steel City Drones Flight Academy. So today, May 16, 2019, the FAA announced some big changes for rules and regulations for recreational drone pilots. So I wanted to get on top of this as quickly as possible because, as of already, right now, a lot of people are kind of misunderstanding a lot of things what’s going on here.

There’s some confusion so I wanted to get on top of that as quick as possible to get you the right answers as to what you need to know. This is basically the master document that you’re going to have to look at.

This is 11 pages long and this is really legally binding from public law for Section 115, 254, Section 44809 What does that mean? Just simply enough again, that essentially what the FAA is doing is having an introducing eight statutory conditions for recreational fliers.

So let’s talk about some of these things one at a time. If you go down to page 4 and 5, essentially these are the things that you’re gonna have to be concerned about. Let’s talk about what remains as current.

The definition of ‘Recreational Use’ remains the same. If you want to use a drone for any reason to futher a business, whether you make any money off of it or not, even one penny, it doesn’t matter.

If you’re just used taking pictures and you’re putting them up on a company’s website or whatever have you, that is considered commercial use. You still must retain line-of-sight or have a visual observer maintain line of sight for you and you must give way to manned aircraft.

There’s no longer any wiggle room to fly above 400 feet. There used to be some provisions in there, under a community-based set of rules that allowed you to fly above 400 feet. Those are no longer applicable to recreational flying.

Secondly, you must now have FAA Authorization to fly in controlled airspace. That is a big change that we’re going to talk about after we go through the rest of the list. Recreational fliers can no longer call local airports.

Air traffic control should no longer be taking the recreational fliers phone calls. Next, recreational drone pilots are no longer required to call airports. Now, that was big because anytime that you are within five miles of a heliport you were required to contact the heliport operations and if you’re obviously in a large metropolitan area.

you could have up to 12 to 14 different hospitals that you would have to communicate with. You’re no longer needing to do that this. This one requirement alone is a huge, huge, improvement for recreational fliers.

You also can have to now use with a system called LAANC, which is the low altitude authorization and notification capability system, in the future to obtain that airspace. What that means is, right now for commercial fliers, like myself, anytime we need to fly in controlled airspace we would have to actually use a system called LAANC.

It’s an app that we use on our phone and it’s gonna use and look toward a UAS Facility maps and compare that to make sure that we’re able to do so. I’ll explain that a little bit after we go to the rest of the list.

LAANC is not functional for recreational fliers as of yet. So, until then, the FAA is granting temporary airspace authorizations to fly in certain fixed sites in controlled airspace throughout the country.

There’s approximately, as of right now, 240 sites across the United States that they’re starting out with. Now, the Pittsburgh area alone only has one site and it’s very very small. One small field facility and that’s going to be pretty much the same thing across the country.

We’ll go over some of those particulars as we go through the rest of the list. The FAA regulations are not the sole source of law that joint operators need to comply with. Recreational fliers will have to take and pass an aeronautical knowledge test to be able to even use their drone for recreational use.

Now, that’s a huge, huge, development and that’s gonna obviously stir up a lot of controversy and make a lot of people unhappy. So, that’s not in effect, as of right now, May 16, 2019, but, at some point in the future that’s going to be a requirement.

So it’s gonna be interesting to see how those developments shake out. Okay, so, let’s go back and talk about one of the biggest changes, which means recreational drone pilots can no longer fly in controlled airspace without an airspace authorization by the FAA in advance.

Now, what that means is, if you look at this map of the Northeast right now, you see all these areas in green and in red. Those indicate controlled airspace that starts at the surface and that’s what drone operators have to be recognizing.

That’s what’s going to be important to you guys. So, right now what I’m using is what’s called a UAS Facility Maps. Now, this is an FAA website that you can actually go in there and you can put in a very specific address or you can actually look at it from a more wider scope of an area to look at how the airspace shakes out.

So the way this works, and I’ll zoom in right now to show you, this is the facilities map for Pittsburgh International Airport. Now this is a circle that is 14 miles from an end-to-end and it’s seven miles from the center of the airport to the outer parts of the radius.

So, that’s a large area. Now, what Pittsburgh International did, was, they looked at their facilities, they looked at the entire area and they mapped out this grid with different levels of maximum heights a drone operator can get approved for.

So, in other words, what they did was, they looked at it and said, okay this grid right here is 400 feet, we would allow drone operators to fly up to 400 feet and it’s because it’s not gonna affect our operations between planes taking off or landing into the traffic patterns of the airport.

In other areas, they may say, “okay, on this grid, which is a 100 feet, this is all they’re going to allow, because anything higher can possibly interfere with flight operations and so forth.

So in some instances you have zero. Meaning, they’re not gonna even allow you to fly 5 feet high. Some are 50ft, 100ft, 200 and 400. Let’s say you want to fly in this quadrant right here of the grid, which is a hundred feet.

If you apply, went into LAANC, and you asked for a 102 feet, it’ll come back and say, they’re not gonna allow you to do so. If you want 95 feet, they’ll say, ok you’ll be approved. So,if your request is gonna stay underneath what that altitude is going to be you’ll get the request.

It’s gonna be a nice automated system that you can use your app for and get instant authorization through a text message. That’s the way the commercial system is used as of right now. So that’s how that’s going to be used.

But now they’re saying until LAANC is ready for recreational flying, now you’re gonna be designated into limited areas. You go under ‘Recreational Fliers’, in the green, and then come down here and you’ll see where it says the FAA has posted a list of approved sites.

This is a spreadsheet that’s lists all of theme. Right now there’s a little over 200 nationwide and again they’re depicted by blue dots on this map. Now. if we look at even. looking at the same UAS facility’s map for Pittsburgh, if I drill down and zoom in on it, you’ll see a really small blue circle.

If I keep zooming in, even zooming in closer, you’ll see, this here, is a recognized flying field that you can fly in controlled airspace and that the FAA will allow you. Now, then when you want to find more information about it, you can go ahead and double click on it and it tells you all the information about that and where the point of contact information, where you can get more information.

So, this specific one right here is an AMA flying field. So you would have to coordinate with that group, with that organization, to fly in that area. So you would have to coordinate any flying that you’d want to do there, with the AMA’s local contact people.

You’d have to join, make sure you’re joined to AMA as well, before you can fly that. You can’t just go rogue, you’d still need coordination through that. And also too, is that, you know, you also have private properties are down here as well.

You just can’t this fly directly over private property without permission. I’m gonna go into private property issues and some drone laws in a future podcast next month. So there are rules and regulations in place for this.

If we go back to here, into this map, knowing this area around Pittsburgh, there’s many other area, local airports, that are not in controlled airspace at the surface. But if I go down to here under, Washington County, Washington County Airport, notice that’s not part of that, because the airspace at that airport and the surrounding area does not start until 700 feet high.

So, therefore, we can’t go 700 feet high anyway, so it’s a mute point, which is again, why we’re not even talking about that. If we go up here in the north, there’s Butler County Airport.

Again, that’s another airport, an area where the controlled airspace does not start until 700 feet. Now, lastly, I’m also getting a lot of questions about night flying. So, night flying is still not, is not even discussed in any of this literature.

So, with that said, I believe, in my own opinion, the night flying aspect is still being worked out. Because, under commercial rules and regulations, a commercial remote pilot has to get a waiver to fly at night.

And obviously if a commercial operator has to do that, and also have equipment to be able to fly at night, then that certainly is probably going to most likely be addressed on the recreational side of things as well.

But, as of right now, it has, it’s not being addressed. So we really don’t know exactly what’s going on with that. Okay, so that basically sums up all the changes that you need to know. If you still have more questions, please feel free to leave questions down in the comments section.

And underneath in the description, I’m going to also leave certain links of the different things that are you’re gonna want to take a look at, and, like, for example how to be able to access the UAS Facility Maps, certain links to different things.

You’re gonna be able to see that right down in the description of the video. So, with that said, like always, thanks for watching and I’ll talk to soon. If you like this video and like to see more free videos in the future please subscribe to our You Tube channel.

And while you’re at it, if you’re interested in free lessons on how to fly drones, discounts on drone equipment, discounts on insurance or access to our exclusive drone video library – Checkout our website www.

SteelCityFlightAcademy.com [Applause] hey everybody this is Dave from Steel City Jones flight Academy so today May 16th 2019 the FAA announced some big changes for roles and regulations for recreational drone pilots so I wanted to get on top of this as quickly as possible because as of already right now a lot of people are kind of misunderstanding a lot of things what’s going on here there’s some confusion so I wanted to get on top of that as quick as possible to get you the right answers as to what you need to know this is the basically the master document that you’re going to have to look at and this is 11 pages long and this rule is legally binding from public law for section 115 to 54 section 4 for 809 what does that mean discipline off again that essentially what the FAA is doing is having an introducing eight statutory conditions for recreational fliers so let’s talk about some of these things one at a time if you go down to page four and five essentially these are the things that you’re gonna have to be concerned about let’s talk about what remains as current the definition of recreational use remains the same if you want to use a drone for any reason for two firmance of a business whether you make any money off of it or not even one penny it doesn’t matter if you’re just used taking pictures and you’re putting them up on a company’s website or whatever have you that is considered commercial use you still must remain tane line of sight or have a visual observer maintain line of sight for you and you must give way to manned aircraft there’s no longer any wiggle room to fly above 400 feet there used to be some provisions and they’re on community-based set of rules that allowed you to fly above 400 feet those are no longer applicable to recreational flying secondly you must now have FAA authorization to fly in controlled airspace and that is a big change that we’re going to talk about after we go through the rest of the list recreational fliers can no longer call local airports air traffic control should no longer be taking the recreational fliers phone calls next recreational drone pilots are no longer required to call airports now that was big because anytime that you are within five miles of a heliport you are required to contact the heliport operations and if you obviously in a large metropolitan area you could have have up to 12 to 14 different hospitals that you would have to communicate with you’re no longer needing to do that this one requirement alone is a huge huge improvement for recreational fliers you’re also can have to now use with a system called Lance which is the low altitude authorization and notification capability system in the future to obtain that airspace what that means is right now for commercial fliers like myself anytime we need to fly in controlled airspace we would have to actually use a system code Lance it’s an app that we use on our phone and it’s gonna use and look toward a UAS facilities map and compare that to make sure that we’re able to do so I’ll explain that a little bit after we go to the rest of the list Lance is not functional for recreational flowers as of yet so until then the FAA is granting temporary airspace authorizations to fly and certain fixed sites in controlled airspace throughout the country there’s approximately as of right now 240 sites across the United States that they’re starting out with now the pittsburgh area alone only has one slight and it’s very very small one small field facility and that’s going to be pretty much the same thing across the country we’ll go over some of those particulars as we go through the rest of the list the FAA regulations are not the sole source of law that joint operators need to comply with recreational fliers will have to take and pass an aeronautical knowledge test to be able to even use their drug for recreational use now that’s a huge huge development and that’s gonna obviously stir up a lot of controversy and make a lot of people unhappy so that’s not a no effect as of right now May 16 2009 teen but at some point in the future that’s going to be a requirement so it’s gonna be interesting to see how those developments shake out okay so let’s go back and talk about one of the biggest changes which means recreational drone pilots can no longer fly in controlled airspace without an airspace authorization by the FAA in advance now what that means is if you look at this map of the Northeast right now you see all these areas in green and in red those indicate controlled airspace that starts at the surface and that’s what drone operators have to be recognizing and that’s what’s going to be important to you guys so right now what I’m using is what’s called a UAS facilities map no this is an FAA website that you can actually go in there and you can put in a very specific address or you can actually look at it from a more wider scope of an area to look at what how the airspace shakes out so the way this works and I’ll zoom in right now to show you this is the facilities map for Pittsburgh International Airport now this is a circle that is 14 miles from an end-to-end and it’s seven miles from the center of the airport to the outer parts of the radius so it’s a large area now what Pittsburgh International did was they booked at their facilities they looked at the entire area and they mapped out this dread with different levels of maximum heights a drone operator can get approved for so in other words what they did was they looked at and said okay this brit right here is 400 feet we would allow Jona operators to fly up to 400 feet and it’s because it’s not gonna affect our operations between planes taking off or landing into the traffic patterns of the airport and other areas they may say okay on this grid which is a hundred feet this is all they’re going to allow because anything higher can possibly interfere with flight operations and so forth so in some instances you have zero meaning they’re not gonna even allow you to fly five feet high some are 50 feet 100 feet 200 and 400 let’s say you want to fly in this quadrant right here and the other grid which is a hundred feet if you apply went into Lance and you asked for a hundred and two feet it’ll come back and say it’s not they’re not gonna allow you to do so if you want 95 feet they’ll say ok you’ll be approved so if your request is gonna stay underneath what that altitude is going to be you’ll get the request and it’s gonna be a nice automated system that you can use your app for and get instant authorization through a text message and that’s the way the commercial system is used as of right now so that’s how that’s going to be used but now they’re saying until Lance is ready for recreational flying now you’re gonna be designated into limited areas you go under recreational flyers in the grain and then come down here and you’ll see where it says the FAA has posted a list of approved sites and this is a spreadsheet that’s this all done them right now there’s a little over 200 nationwide and again they’re depicted by blue dots on this map now if we look at even looking at the same UAS facility’s mount for Pittsburgh if I drill down and zoom in on it you’ll see a really small blue circle and if I keep zooming in and zooming in closer you’ll see this here is a recognized flying field that you can fly in controlled airspace and that the FAA will allow you now and then when you want to find more information about it you can go ahead and double click on it and it’ll tells you all the information about that and we’re the point of contact information where you can get more information that this specific one right here is an ama flying field so you would have to coordinate with that group with that organization to fly in that area so you would have to coordinate any flying that you’d want to do there with the AMAs local contact people you’d have to join make sure you’re joined to a ma as well before you to fly that you can’t just go rogue you distill D coordination through that and also to is that you know you also have private properties are down here as well and you just can’t this fly directly over private property without permission and I’m gonna go into private property issues and some drone laws in a future podcast next month so there are rules and regulations in place for this if we go back to here into this map knowing this area around Pittsburgh there’s a many other area local airports that are not in controlled airspace at the surface but if I go down to here under Washington County waters Washington County Airport notice that’s not part that because the airspace at that Airport and the surrounding area does not start until 700 feet high so therefore we can’t go 700 feet high anyway so it’s a mute point which is again why we’re not even talking about that if we go up here in North there’s Butler County Airport again that’s another airport an area where the controlled airspace does not start until 700 feet now lastly I also getting a lot of questions about night flying so night flying is still not is not even discussed in any of this literature so with that said I believe in my own opinion the night flying aspect is still being worked out because under commercial rules and regulations a commercial remote pilot has to get a waiver to fly at night and obviously if a commercial operator has to do that and also have equipment to be able to fly at night then that sturm is probably going to most likely be addressed on the recreational side of things as well but as of right now it as it’s not being addressed so we really don’t know exactly what’s going on with that okay so that basically sums up all the changes that you need to know if you still have more questions please feel free to leave questions down in the comments section and I’ll underneath in the description I’m going to also leave certain links of the different things that are you’re gonna want to take a look at and like for example how to be able to access the UAS facility’s Maps certain links to different things you’re gonna be able to see that right down in the description of the video so with that said like always thanks for watching and I’ll talk to soon if you like this video and like to see more free videos in the future please subscribe to our You Tube channel and while you’re at it if you’re interested in free lessons on how to fly drones discounts on drone equipment discounts on insurance or access to our exclusive drone video library check out our website Steel City Flight Academy com you