Flying Machines within Yosemite

The NPS released an announcement today related to drone use within Yosemite. It claims that a statement that ‘“delivering or retrieving a person or object by parachute, helicopter, or other airborne means, except in emergencies involving public safety or serious property loss, or pursuant to the terms and conditions of a permit” is illegal.’ applies to drone use.

Drone flying over a waterfall in a wooded area

Now, I personally find that sentiment a bit odd — my quadcopter isn’t ‘delivering or retrieving [an] object’, as far as I know; I would be hard-pressed to consider that phrasing to apply to me if I were reading it. But even more importantly, reading the CFR that is referenced, there is a much more obvious section that the FAA would probably claim applies: 36 CFR 2.17 (a)(1) says: “Operating or using aircraft on lands or waters other than at locations designated pursuant to special regulations.”

Given that the NPS has instead chosen to go with section 3, this seems like a position of the NPS/DOI that the FAA’s position on drones/remote controlled model aircraft being treated as ‘aircraft’ is just wrong. However, weaseling this into another regulation (with the dubious claim that the ‘object being delivered is the drone itself’, as they claimed on their Facebook page), is almost as bad of an approach. It at least has the benefit that it doesn’t affect flying outside the parks, so I find it less personally concerning for long-term survival of the hobby.

They already have a prohibition (36 CFR 2.12 (a)(1)) which prevents ‘operating motorized equipment … [t]hat exceeds a noise level of 60 decibels measured on the A-weighted scale at 50 feet; or … makes noise which is unreasonable, considering … [the] purpose for which the area was established [and] impact on park users…’ I think this is an entirely reasonable regulation, but the noise level from the quad almost certainly doesn’t meet the “60 decibels at 50 feet”, so only the “bothering other people” aspect would apply — and therefore make it reasonable to operate in an area where there are no other people around, or where people won’t be bothered by the noise (such as where I was on the Presidio, where no one could even hear the quad over the wind).

I think this has three big take-aways for me:

  1. The people who wrote this document did not feel that drones are aircraft. This runs counter to the FAA position, but is good, because there is no legal defense for calling these things aircraft. This means that there continues to be support for the legal notion that there are no current regulations which apply.
  2. The NPS has a desire to block the use of drones, and will do whatever they can to do so. This means that regardless of what the law says, you should not expect to fly in a National Park and not get told you can’t.
  3. Given the other regulations prohibiting the use of ‘motorized toys’, I expect the NPS will change their regs to explicitly ban drones in the future, at which point you will not have a legal leg to stand on — so if you want to pick a fight, you might as well do it now.

I continue to be supportive of reasonable regulation regarding drone use in the national airspace, and continue to be supportive of the NPS/DOI passing reasonable regulations that apply to model aircraft. I dislike the use of wordsmithing to try and fit these things into existing regulations, and I think that the NPS should work hard to make their regulations legally match their claimed authority.

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