so ive been trying to get authorization to fly near a small regional airport, nothing crazy, just want to get some shots of a lake thats like 1.2 miles from the runway. ran the request through aloft (used to use airmap but whatever) and it just keeps coming back denied automatically. no explanation, just denied.

the weird thing is when i look at the sectional on skyvector the airspace there is class D and i thought LAANC was supposed to handle class D automatically? like isnt that the whole point? my buddy flew literally the same area 6 months ago and said he just got instant approval. nothing has changed near there as far as i can tell, no notams for that area either.

do i just submit a part 107 waiver at this point or is there something im missing with how LAANC grids work. feels like im going in circles

the grid thing is probably your issue. LAANC approvals are based on these predefined altitude grids that the FAA sets up around each airport and they dont always match what you'd expect just from looking at the airspace class. some squares near you might be set to 0ft authorized altitude which means auto-denial no matter what. you can actually see the grid overlays in aloft if you zoom in enough, look for the numbers inside each little square. if your location sits in a 0ft grid then yeah youre not getting LAANC approval there, full stop.

your only real option at that point is a DroneZone waiver which can take weeks, or honestly just see if theres a slightly different vantage point outside that grid cell. ive moved like 200 feet before and gone from 0ft to 200ft authorized, the grids are weirdly arbitrary sometimes.

this happened to me too and i was so confused. turns out there was a temporary flight restriction i missed, they dont always show up super obviously. worth double checking tfrs.faa.gov separately from whatever app youre using cause some apps have a delay on TFR data. probably not your issue but just something to check before going through the whole waiver process