okay so this was kind of stressful and im still not totally sure what happened legally. i was flying at a local county park last saturday, had my drone up maybe 200 feet just doing some slow orbits around a pond, nobody around really just a few dog walkers way off in the distance. a parks and rec officer came up and told me i needed a permit to fly there and that drones were prohibited in county parks. i said i wasnt aware of that and he let me go with just a warning but now im wondering if he was actually right or just kind of guessing. i thought federal law preempts local stuff?

i didnt have any permit, didnt even know you needed one. should i have pushed back or just let it go like i did

this is actually a genuinely complicated area of law and the honest answer is it depends. the FAA does regulate the national airspace but there have been court cases going both ways on whether local governments can ban flying in specific locations. generally speaking a city or county can restrict drone use in parks they own and manage ? thats considered a land use issue not airspace regulation. so the officer might have been completely correct depending on your county's ordinances. the faa preemption argument gets thrown around a lot in drone communities but it doesnt mean local rules dont exist or dont apply, it mostly applies to things like speed limits for drones or blanket prohibitions on the technology itself

i would look up your specific county parks department rules. many of them do have explicit no-drone policies. and honestly getting the permit if one exists is usually not that hard or expensive

you definitely did the right thing just letting it go, arguing with a parks officer over drone law isnt going to end well even if youre technically right. ive had similar run-ins and its just not worth it. that said i always check the county parks website now before i go anywhere new because so many of them quietly added drone bans in the last few years and never really announced it. some parks you can apply for a permit which is what i do when i want to shoot video somewhere specific