so ive been flying my mini 3 for a few months now and theres a small regional airport maybe like 4 or 5 miles from my house and i want to fly in my backyard which is probably 3.5 miles from the runway give or take. i checked on the B4UFLY app and it showed some kind of authorization required thing but i honestly dont fully understand what that means. like do i just hit a button somewhere or is this a whole application process that takes weeks. i looked up LAANC but the explanations i found were all kind of technical and im not sure if my area is even covered by it or if i have to do the manual waiver thing through the FAA website which sounds way more complicated.

the airport is a pretty small one, mostly small prop planes and occasional charter stuff, not like an international airport. does that matter at all for what kind of authorization i need? just want to fly in my own yard without getting in trouble

LAANC is actually way simpler than it sounds once you do it once. if your area is covered (and most areas near airports are these days) you can just open up something like Aloft or even the DJI fly app itself and request authorization right there, usually approves in like 30 seconds automatically. the trick is you need to know what grid square you're in and what the ceiling altitude is for that grid - some spots near airports only let you go up to like 0 or 50 feet which is basically useless, others give you up to 400.

if your area isnt covered by LAANC then yeah you're stuck doing the part 107 waiver through DroneZone which can take months. but id check in Aloft first before assuming that, most regional airports are covered now. also yes the size of the airport does matter somewhat for the grid ceilings but the authorization process is the same regardless.

3.5 miles is probably fine depending on the specific airspace class. not all airports have the same radius of controlled airspace - class D airports (which is what most small regionals are) typically only extend out 4nm but it varies. worth double checking what class the airspace actually is before assuming you need anything at all. some people stress about this stuff and they're not even in controlled airspace to begin with.