How To Legally Fly a Drone in a National Park? (YDQA Ep 50) 

Also, you can't fly in Congressionally-designated Wilderness Areas, so check whether those exist within the National Forest you're interested in.

Both not flying at a NP or WA is really a dumb rule. That can be some of the best locations to get video. And my drone at 150' is quiet. A plane at a mile up sounds louder and is more disruptive.@@geezerpleasers_OG

No! No! No! It is illegal, and should be, to fly a drone inside a National Park! National Parks are for protecting and enjoying the resource. No one wants a drone buzzing around overhead when they are out enjoying nature. They also disturb wildlife. I have witnessed this first hand. They can also malfunction and crash in sensitive areas, where it may be harmful or dangerous to retrieve them in! God! Can't we have anyplace where we can escape technology anymore! The parks are about enjoying nature!

I agree that it seems like a bit of an overreach.

All this so they can preserve tourism?.... Won't be breaking any regs but imo.... Way too much bureaucratic BS!

If I'm out hiking in the beautiful wilderness of a National Park, the very last thing I want is a damn drone buzzing around overhead. They also disturb wildlife. Try leaving your tech at home for once. I guarantee you will enjoy nature far more.

@@alansach8437 Drone batteries last only about 20 minutes. What makes you such an entitled killjoy? Sure it is illegal to harass wildlife. But it is not a gun! I use low-noise propellers, and you really can’t hear the drone at 400 feet.

Agree except hunters and fishermen. That’s keeping ancient skills alive and people that don’t want poisonous food that our government approves.

For the first part of your inquiry, I would suggest using an app like autopylot to search for areas of interest. Here in Michigan I can fly legally over the vast majority of the state. I'm sure the opportunity for good footage would be accessible most anywhere you go, especially in the upper peninsula. But id also like to touch on this proposed "DJI ban" that has been rearing its head for years now. The chances of this current version of the bill passing into law is incredibly unlikely. 1) It only names DJI but is aimed at the chinese drone industry. If the threat from China is as real as they make it out to be, they would ban ALL chinese made drones, which the bill does not do. This is clearly aimed at artificially eliminating competition from the industry. The industry will fail or fall behind if innovation is not leading the free market. 2) DJI has something like 70% of the entire market world wide. Logistically and economically speaking, there is no alternative for the market to fall back on. Even the biggest US drone manufacturer quit making consumer drones to focus on business and enterprise work. 3) At this point any sort of accusation of data sharing and critical infrastructure compromising is purely SPECULATION. Despite all the noise around security concerns there has yet to be a SINGLE shred of evidence to support this notion. Absolutely nothing has been discovered to back up any of these claims since they have manifested. If they really want a nationwide ban it cannot be founded on speculation so until they actually back up any of their claims they have no legs to stand on. 4) Have you read into the bill at all? At one point they claim DJI drones can measure a persons body temperature and even detect human heart beats. Anyone who owns a DJI drone knows that's wildly outlandish. Like lawmakers in general from a top down perspective, they haven't the slightest clue what they are talking about. Putting the consumer drone market aside, there is a surging industry to provide drones to farmers, fire fighters and law enforcement. Firefighters would rather send a drone into burning buildings to search around instead of people risking their lives for example. Drones are literally being used to save lives in certain scenarios so there would need to be compelling evidence to initiate a ban and the burden of proof on this is currently insurmountable.

Apparently not national parks unless you want to do a lot of paperwork

Very true! It’s just that often times the places people want to fly aren’t accessible range-wise from outside of the property boundaries

I would assume the same thing buuuuut, not quite. While the concept you mention might be applied to other areas like local parks, this is different. Check www.nps.gov/articles/mitigating-the-impacts-of-aviation.htm and www.faa.gov/documentLibrary/media/Advisory_Circular/AC_91-36D.pdf. This is where what this video addresses how to fly legally. If you went up in a Cessna with a camera you would not be able to fly any lower that 2,000 ft AGL without NPS permission.

Bad laws like always. Land of the free may ass.

No not how that works

@@johnrose5229It is a grey area, but the statement is technically correct. The national Park does not control the airspace above it. It only controls the ground, so the statement of launch and recover outside is correct…but then you bring in line of sight.

Glad to know they let you fly! How recent was this? Yeah we’re not saying it’s a great system. Just reporting 🫡

Thanks for the irrelevant comment.

@@omullis Hurting feelings A 🤣

I've also seen park rangers that do care and threaten to take a drone.

@ugpfpv361 not in New Jersey

yeah, I've seen it too, they told the park rangers they were going to use it and did. nothing happened, this was in 2023.

@@n3d.studio yeah guess you can claim ignorance, but there's also the chance of getting kick out if they want.

@@ugpfpv361 no they told the ranger they were going to fly it before hand and then did. They were native American decent and when I asked him if he knew about the rules that's when we told me he let them know. And that it was their land anyway. Lol. I feel like that applies to all of us humans though.