so this is still kind of bothering me. was out last weekend flying my mini 3 at this park near where i live, i had checked B4UFLY and also looked at the DJI map before i went and nothing showed up as restricted. no red zones, no orange, nothing. i was maybe 2 miles from a small private airstrip that i didnt even know existed until this guy walks up to me and says im in restricted airspace and i need to land immediately.

i didnt argue with him because honestly he seemed pretty confident and i didnt want a whole thing but afterwards i looked it up and i still cant figure out if he was right or wrong. the airstrip barely shows up anywhere. do these little private strips have airspace around them too or was this guy just one of those people who thinks drones are illegal everywhere

private airstrips can absolutely have airspace around them, yeah. if it has an FAA identifier it has some kind of surface area or at least a traffic pattern you're supposed to avoid. the thing is a lot of the smaller ones dont show up well on consumer apps, the DJI geofencing especially is not comprehensive at all for the really small fields.

the actual authoritative source is sectional charts which you can look at on skyvector or the FAA VFR chart. those show basically everything. might be worth looking up that airstrip by name and seeing if it has a designated traffic pattern altitude or any kind of airspace designation. could have been a Class G situation where technically you're legal but still courteous to stay away from the pattern

honestly without knowing exactly where you were its hard to say. but there are definitely people out there who just see a drone and assume its illegal lol. ive had it happen twice. one time the guy was genuinely trying to be helpful and was just wrong, another time i think the person was just annoyed by drones in general and made it up. i always carry a printed copy of my registration and the FAA recreational flyer rules now just in case, never had to actually show it but it makes me feel better