so this happened last weekend and its been bugging me. i was flying my avata 2 at a local sports field, nobody was there, i was well away from any airport or anything like that. a cop showed up and told me i needed a drone license to fly and that i had to show him my registration. i showed him the FAA registration number on the drone but he kept saying i needed a license like a part 107 certificate.

i tried to explain that recreational flyers dont need part 107 but he wasnt really hearing it and eventually just told me to pack up and leave. i did because i didnt want the situation to escalate but i honestly dont think he was right. can local cops even enforce FAA stuff? and was i actually breaking any law or was he just wrong

ugh this kind of thing is so frustrating. the short answer is he was probably wrong about the part 107 thing ? recreational flyers operating under the exception in section 44809 dont need a remote pilot certificate, just FAA registration and to follow the community based organization safety guidelines. so as long as you had your registration sorted you were technically fine on the federal level.

the more complicated part is local enforcement. cops generally cant enforce FAA regulations directly, thats a federal agency thing. but they can enforce local ordinances, and some cities and counties have their own drone rules layered on top of federal law. so it depends on where exactly you were flying whether there was some local rule he could have actually cited you for. id look up if your city has any drone ordinances on the books. preemption of local drone laws by the FAA is kind of a gray area that courts have gone back and forth on so it gets messy fast.

realistically though the cop probably just didnt know the rules and was going off vibes. it happens constantly with drones because a lot of officers have no training on this stuff at all.

honestly even when youre 100% in the right its not worth arguing with a cop on the spot about FAA jurisdiction. pack up, leave, look it up later. which sounds like what you did so good call. the know before you fly website has a pretty clear breakdown of rec vs part 107 you could print out and bring with you i guess, some people do that