so i've been flying my mini 3 for about 6 months now and i thought i had a pretty good handle on the rules but last weekend i tried to fly near this small regional airport, nothing major just a little municipal thing, and my drone just straight up refused to unlock. i had already checked airspace on the DJI app and it showed the area as a controlled zone but like... the ceiling shown was 0ft which i thought was weird because i could see other drones in the area before.

someone told me to use LAANC through aloft or FAA droneZone but honestly i dont really understand how that works. do i apply for authorization and then it just unlocks in the app automatically? or do i have to do something manually after getting approved? i didnt want to manually override anything because that feels sketchy to me and i've heard people say that gets you in trouble even if you had valid reasons.

also is there a difference between a temporary no-fly zone and a permanent one? because the area i was in might have had something going on that day, there was a small airshow type event at the airport. not sure if that changes things.

yeah LAANC is worth it once you understand how it works, the confusion is totally normal at first. basically when you request authorization through an app like aloft or even through FAA DroneZone, if the grid you're requesting falls under a LAANC-enabled facility and the altitude you're asking for is within the UAS facility map ceiling, it gets approved almost instantly ? we're talking seconds usually. after that though you do have to manually unlock in the DJI app in most cases, it doesnt happen automatically, at least not in my experience with the mini 3.

the airshow thing is a totally separate issue though. that would have been a TFR ? temporary flight restriction ? and those are completely different from the standing controlled airspace. LAANC doesnt help you with TFRs at all, you cannot fly in a TFR period, full stop. you can check for active TFRs on the FAA website or through skyvector. if there was an airshow going on that explains a lot, they usually issue TFRs that stack on top of whatever airspace is already there. so you were probably hitting both issues at once which is why it was so confusing.

i had the exact same thing happen to me lol. ended up just going home that day because i didnt feel like dealing with it. still havent fully figured out LAANC if im being honest but i downloaded aloft and it seems easier than the FAA website which is kind of a mess