so i live maybe like 4 or 5 miles from a small regional airport, not like a major one, its basically just a runway for small prop planes and the occasional charter flight. ive been flying my mini 3 pro in my backyard and around the neighborhood for a few months now and just kind of assumed i was fine since its a tiny airport and i stay under 100ft usually. but someone in another thread mentioned LAANC and now im not sure if ive been doing something wrong this whole time. do i need to authorize every single flight or is there some kind of threshold where it doesnt matter? i have my part 107 by the way if that changes anything.

yeah so basically if youre within the controlled airspace around that airport (usually a Class D or Class E surface, depending on the facility) you technically need authorization regardless of how small the airport is or how low you fly. the 5 mile thing people throw around is old guidance from before LAANC existed, doesnt really apply anymore. with your part 107 you can use LAANC through apps like aloft or skyvector to get near-instant authorization for most areas. just check what grid youre in and what the ceiling is ? sometimes its 0ft approved which means you gotta do a manual waiver, but a lot of residential areas around small airports have a 100 or 200ft ceiling in LAANC which sounds like it might cover your backyard flights. definitely worth checking before your next flight, especially since you already have 107.

the aloft app makes this pretty easy to check honestly. i was in a similar situation near a small GA airport and was surprised to find out i was sitting in Class D airspace the whole time. got my LAANC auth in like 2 minutes once i figured out the app. just dont sleep on it because the "its a tiny airport" logic doesnt really hold up legally even if practically nothing would probably happen.