ok so this happened yesterday and im still kind of rattled. was out flying near a reservoir, totally open area, no airports nearby that i know of, and some guy who said he was a park ranger came over and told me i was violating restricted airspace and needed to land immediately. i did land obviously but then i went home and checked B4UFLY and i honestly couldnt find anything that clearly marked that area as restricted. there was something on the map that looked like a light blue shaded area but i always assumed those were just informational or advisory not actual no-fly.

now im worried about whether i'm gonna get some kind of fine or report filed or whatever. the ranger took my name and wrote something down. does this actually go anywhere, like does the FAA actually follow up on stuff like this? and what even are those light blue areas on the map cause nobody ever explained those to me when i got started

the light blue areas are usually either class E airspace starting at surface level or sometimes temporary flight restrictions - hard to say without seeing the actual map. but honestly a lot of rangers dont fully understand drone regulations themselves, which creates these awkward situations all the time. some of them are enforcing local park rules that are completely separate from FAA airspace rules, like a reservoir managed by a county or state agency can ban drones just based on their own land use policies even if the airspace above is totally legal to fly in.

so you might have been fine airspace-wise but still technically breaking a ground rule. or he might have just been wrong. either way the FAA isnt going to come knocking on your door over one interaction with a ranger, especially if you landed cooperatively. if it was a genuine TFR violation thats different but youd usually know because the apps flag those pretty hard.

same thing happend to me at a lake last summer. turned out the whole area was under some kind of temporary restriction i didnt know about, not even airport related, i think it was tied to a wildfire response nearby and the TFR had been extended into areas that looked clear on the maps i was using. after that i started checking notams manually before i fly anywhere unfamiliar which is kind of a pain but its caught stuff the apps missed a couple times