so i just got a mini 3 pro for christmas and im trying to figure out the whole registration thing. i live in a pretty rural area, no airports nearby that i know of, and i mostly just want to fly around my property and maybe the field behind my house. do i still have to register with the FAA? i looked it up and it said something about 250 grams but im not sure if that applies to me or if its different because im in a residential area. also someone told me my state has its own rules on top of the federal ones? i dont even know where to start with that

okay so the 250 gram thing is the federal threshold - if your drone is over 250g you have to register with the FAA, period, doesnt matter if youre in your backyard or the middle of nowhere. the mini 3 pro is definitely over that so yeah you need to register. its like 5 bucks and takes maybe 10 minutes on the FAA DroneZone website, honestly not that painful. as for state rules, it really depends where you are. some states have basically nothing on top of federal, others have weird stuff about flying over private property or within certain distances of roads. i'd look up your specific state + drone laws and see what comes up, the AUVSI site sometimes has decent breakdowns per state

yeah register it, dont risk it. i thought the same thing when i started out and got a little too comfortable flying around my neighborhood. nothing happened but in retrospect it wouldve been a bad situation if someone reported me or whatever. the fine for unregistered commercial operation is way worse but even recreational has penalties. rural probably means youre fine most of the time practically speaking but legally youre still supposed to be registered if the drone weighs more than 250g which the mini 3 definitely does