so this is kind of a rant but also a genuine question i guess. went out to a state park last weekend, really nice area with some good elevation changes and wanted to get some footage for a personal project. had my mavic air 2 all ready to go and honestly i had done a quick check on the dji fly app before leaving the house and it looked fine, no red zones or anything.

get there, start up the drone, and right as im about to take off some ranger walks over and tells me i need a permit to fly in state parks and also that part of the area was under a temporary flight restriction because of some wildfire activity like 40 miles away. i didnt even know TFRs were a thing honestly, i thought if the app said green i was good to go.

like how are people supposed to know about all this stuff, the apps clearly dont cover everything and theres nowhere obvious to look it up. do people just check like 5 different things every single time before they fly or what

yeah unfortunately the dji app is not a reliable source for airspace info, it hasnt been updated fast enough to catch a lot of things especially TFRs which can pop up with very little notice. the FAA updates those sometimes with only a few hours warning, wildfire TFRs especially can expand really fast. you want to check notams.faa.gov or the B4UFLY app right before you fly, like literally in the parking lot before you pull the drone out. also the state park thing is completely separate from FAA airspace, thats a land use issue not an airspace issue, and almost every state has different rules about it. some parks are totally fine others require permits months in advance its a mess

this caught me out too when i was starting. the green on dji maps basically just means no controlled airspace, it doesnt account for TFRs, national parks, state parks, tribal land, wildlife refuges, any of that. i now use about three different apps before i fly anywhere new which feels excessive but ive learned my lesson. airmap usually has more up to date TFR info in my experience. and honestly the permit thing for state parks is just something you have to research per location ahead of time, theres no single resource that covers all of it which is genuinely frustrating