so this happened yesterday and its still kind of bothering me. i was flying in what i thought was a totally legal spot ? open field, not near an airport, had my FAA registration number on the drone. a police officer came over and started asking questions about whether i had a license and i told him i was flying recreationally under the hobbyist rules and he seemed skeptical and said the city had ordinances against drone flying in public parks.

i honestly didnt know that was a thing. i thought if the FAA said it was okay airspace-wise then i was good. he let me go with just a warning but now im wondering how i'm supposed to know all these local city ordinances on top of the federal stuff. like is there a database or something? feels impossible to stay on top of all of it

yeah this is one of the most frustrating things about flying in the US right now. the FAA controls airspace but they dont preempt local governments from making rules about where you can take off and land or just generally fly over certain areas. so a city can absolutely say no drones in our parks and that's a separate thing from FAA authorization. courts have gone back and forth on exactly how much authority local governments have here but practically speaking if there's a local ordinance you're probably not going to win that argument on the spot with a cop.

there isn't really one central database for all of this which is the problem. B4UFLY and aloft will show you FAA stuff but not necessarily municipal codes. best thing i've found is just googling the specific city name and drone ordinance before you go somewhere new. some cities post it clearly, others you have to dig through their code of ordinances website. annoying but kind of necessary at this point.

same thing happend to me at a city park in texas like two years ago. the officer was actually pretty cool about it once i showed him my FAA registration and explained the recreational rules but he did say the city had posted signs about no drones that i had apparently missed near the entrance. after that i started actually walking around and looking for signs before i set up anywhere which sounds obvious in hindsight. a lot of cities quietly added drone language to their existing park rules after 2018 or so and didnt exactly advertise it