Drone operations-what you need to know

Recently, there was a startling incident near San Diego International Airport with an illegal drone. A drone was observed flying in the area of a commercial aircraft arriving, potentially creating a dangerous scenario. The drone operator had no clearance or permission to fly in the airport, and there has been concern following this about compliance with rules and safety.

One local reporter accidentally filmed the entire event on video, which captured the drone being close to the passenger plane during its approach to the runway. The footage was then uploaded to YouTube, where it gained views extremely fast and attracted a lot of interest within the community of drone operators.

This viral video once again raised discussion on the threat of drones to manned aviation, especially around airports. It is a reminder to comply with FAA rules and to respect no-fly zones to maintain the safety of everyone either in the air, or on the ground.

A drone flying in an airport

As drones become more prominent in our society as either recreational, or commercial, (for fun or for money) people must be shown the risks of breaking the laws. For example, the drone operator who flew illegally in the San Diego International Airport could be fined up to 75,000$ or more! (faa.gov/proposed-penalties-against-drone-operators)

        Important Rules and Regulations - these are found in faa.gov/regulations.

               (These apply to you if you do not yet have your drone license)

• The TRUST. The TRUST is an easy test that you have to take before flying any drone. It is very simple, and just shows you some rules and regulations so you don’t accidentally break the law. Just search up TRUST on google to find it.

• If you are flying in exchange for any sort of compensation, whether it is money or something like baseball tickets, you must be certified by the FAA

                                                    What this means

Just like a drivers license, you have to get licensed for drones if you are flying for money. You can receive this license by doing a course on drones, which requires you to learn all the laws for drones, and then you have to pass the test. The test is called the Part 107 test.

• Unless you have specific certification, you cannot fly in “restricted airspace” or areas around airports and other restricted areas like military bases. You can check where you are to see if you can fly at wherever you want to fly by going to ALOFT Air Control, making an account, and then looking at the area where you want to fly to make sure it is safe to fly there.

                      How to make a LAANC authorization

This is to fly in the blue areas in ALOFT air control (class E airspace). (you don’t need to do this unless you are flying in a blue area)

1. Search up ALOFT air control

2. Click on the first link

3. Make an account/sign up

4. Fill out the fields and make a password

5. Click on Manage (all the way to the left side above the gear symbol)

6. Under logs, click on LAANC authorizations

7. Click on the “Request Authorization” button

8. Fill out the required fields (the questions should be what time will you be flying, how long will you be flying, are you flying commercial (flying for money, which is illegal without a Part 107 drone license) or recreational (flying for fun), how high you will fly (illegal to fly above 400 feet above the ground) and finally where in the blue areas will you be flying (put the little green square on the map where you want to fly)

8 Done! It will send you a text verifying where and when you are going to fly

                                    More rules and regulations

• To fly legally without a license for your drone (this is not the Part 107 license, this is a license to legally fly your drone when it is over 0.55 pounds) , your drone must weigh less than 0.55 pounds, including everything that is on or attached to the drone. Also, a drone must not weigh more or equal to 55 pounds. If your drone is more than 0.55 pounds, it doesn’t matter that much, it will just cost around 5 USD to register, and you can register your drone only in an official FAA website.

• You must keep your drone in sight, without using any vision enhancements such as binoculars. 

• You must not fly over 400 feet AGL (above ground level). Also, you have to fly 500 feet below clouds, so if the cloud level is 800 feet AGL, you cannot fly to a height of over 300 feet AGL. Unless you want your drone to “yard sale” or crash into the ground, it would not be good to fly a drone in rain, (because the rain could get into the drone and render the drone useless) snow, (same reason for rain, but the drone’s motor could also freeze over and make it crash), or wind, (because the drone could be blown into a tree).

• Avoid flying 30 minutes before civil twilight (midnight), and 30 minutes before sunset, unless you have lights which are visible for at least 10 stature miles (10 miles in each direction)

• 8 hour bottle to throttle - no drinking 8 hours before a drone operation

• You cannot fly unless you have at least 3 statured miles of visibility (you can see for 3 miles in all directions)

• You cannot register a drone if you are under 13 years of age

• You cannot fly more than one drone at a time

• You have to make sure precautions are taken to avoid injury before dropping things from your drone

• Be a good neighbor - just don't be creepy. Although not technically illegal, don’t invade your neighbors personal space by flying a drone right near them, and don’t take unnecessary videos and pictures of other people. 

• Don't fly if you are in a impaired state - either using medicine that makes flying hard, or something like exhaustion.

• Yield the right of way to all manned aircraft - if a plane is coming right at you, just veer to the right or take evasive action. 

• You can break the rules only in an emergency. If a plane is coming your way, and you deem the best course of action you can take is to fly above 400 feet AGL, you can do so. This exception applies to all the rules. If you get an email from the FAA asking why you climbed to that altitude, you must fill out a form and either the FAA accepts the excuse, or doesn’t, which if they don’t, you can be fined. If you do climb to a height higher than 400 feet AGL, and the FAA doesn’t email you, then you are fine. Don't turn yourself in unless they specifically send you an email.

• You cannot fly over people, unless you have specific certifications from the FAA

• If there is a TFR (temporary flight restriction) up, you cannot fly. (These only happen during a presidential event, during sporting events, or some other wild occurrence.

                           Two great drones for starting a business

• DJI Mini 3 (DJI RC) (personal favorite) 459.00 USD. This drone has a very good camera, with a 30 minute battery life. The controller has a screen on it, so you are not forced to use your phone to connect to the drone for pictures and videos. The screen is much less laggy than the phone, and shows your drone while it is moving in real time. This drone also weighs less than 0.55 pounds, so it can be flown without needing registration. This drone is equipped with the same return to home feature as the other drones, but it is better in the winds than other drones.

• DJI Mini 4k pro - 959.00 USD. This drone has everything that the other drones have, with the added bonus of having a really really good camera, with another battery that lasts 34 minutes, and is lightweight. As a side note, most of these drones that are underweight have better batteries that are sold separately besides the one on the drone, but this extra battery life makes it so that the drone weighs more that 0.55 pounds, so you will have to register it. This drone also beeps when you are too close to an object, and can track moving objects with its camera. It also has the same screen on the controller, for better video and pictures.

     Two recommended quality drones for fun that work pretty well

• DJI Mini 4K - 329.00 USD. This drone has a pretty good camera, with two batteries that have a combined flight time of 62 minutes, and it is under 0.55 pounds which means you don’t have to do the extra work of registering your drone. These drones also come with a “Return to home” feature, which allows you to press a button and the drone will return back to wherever you set its home point to within a reasonable distance. (Always set a new home point before you take off, or the drone will try to go back to the previous set home point.

• DJI Neo - 200.00 USD. This drone has a good camera, with it being well below the 0.55 pound registration limit, and it is self flying! It is so small that it can take off from your hand, and has propeller guards to protect you from any type of damage that the drone could do to you. Just tell it what to do, with voice commands or clicking a button on the phone app, and it will follow you or do whatever you want, as long as it is programmed to do so. This drone does require an app, and on the listing it says that the app is not available in Google Play, for those of you that use Google Play, so you will need to go to the DJI official website to download it there.

If I don’t have my drone license, why should I get one?

You can fly for money right out of high school! There are some great jobs out there for drone operators that don’t require you to go to college. You could be a real estate photographer, and you could take photos and videos of properties for around 50,000 USD per year! Even if you don’t want flying drones to be your main job, you could take videos of all of the cool places you go or live near, and then post those videos online for money! 

Aviation classes at Poudre

Poudre has a really good Aviation class! The teacher is very good at teaching about Aviation and drones, with constant knowledge games, drone flying time outside on the Poudre campus, and lots more. Aviation 1 also sets you up for jobs in the future, with the class taking the Part 107 test to get your commercial drone license. The class has almost a 95% pass rate for the Part 107 test! In Aviation 2, you learn about Aerodynamics, and do all sorts of fun things like actually flying a plane with an instructor! The reason why the aviation department has so many things to offer is because usually many teachers across the different schools teach the same subject, and you end up with some good teachers who teach the subject well, and some teachers who are not very good at teaching the subject. An organization at Poudre called the Career Tech Center saw this, and brought all of the schools in the PSD school district together to create one great class where people from all over come together to learn about stuff!

To conclude, did you know that around 70% of what is on the Part 107 drone license test is also on the Private Pilots License test? This means you could pass the Private Pilots license exam with the experience you already have! This happened because when the FAA saw the rise of drones and how potentially dangerous drones could be, they decided to take most of what was on the Private Pilots License test to the Part 107 drone license test. This is the sort of job that aviation and the Part 107 test can set you up for.

---

Sources 

Bezos, Jeff. “Amazon.Com: DJI Drones: Electronics.” DJI Drones: Electronics, Amazon, www.amazon.com/dji-drones-Electronics/s?k=dji+drones&rh=n:172282. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.

FAA. “FAA Regulations.” FAA Regulations | Federal Aviation Administration, www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/faa_regulations. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025. Faa

Aloft. “Aloft Air Control.” Aloft, www.aloft.ai/air-control/. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.

FAA. “FAA Proposed $341,413 in Civil Penalties against Drone Operators.” FAA Proposed $341,413 in Civil Penalties Against Drone Operators | Federal Aviation Administration, www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-proposed-341413-civil-penalties-against-drone-operators. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.

“Drone in San Diego International Airport!” YouTube, YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsDTlpZ9Eig. Accessed 30 Sept. 2025.

Author

Noah Lewis is a 10th grader at the white and blue school of Poudre high school. This is his first year in Poudre Press. He is also an avid wrestler, who wrestles year round. Other hobbies he enjoys include mountain biking, collecting sports memorabilia/cards, camping, and playing video games.