As an FAA Certified Part 107 pilot, if the area you want to fly in is within five miles of an airport, and that airport airspace is controlled airspace, then you will need to get an Airspace Authorization to fly there. In the past, this has required submitting a request through the FAA portal and could take from 30 to 90 days or even longer. Now, If you are lucky enough to live in an area that has the new LAANC (Low Altitude Airspace Notification Capability) system active, you can often get authorization in 30-60 seconds once you submit the request. You can find out more about whether LAANC is active in your area here.
Below, I’m going to show you how to do this using my favorite solution, Skyward.io. Skyward.io primarily caters to larger organizations using drones, but they offer a free account to support single-pilot operations. By signing up, you are able to use the basic features like creating flight locations using the Map feature and planning missions that use LAANC, using its Plan feature. Once you sign up and are logged in, fill out the personal information about who is the pilot, the crew and your drones.
Watch the video
Conclusion
Using the LAANC system makes the entire process of getting Airspace Authorizations much simpler and faster than ever before. Give it a try and see what you think!
Note that another advantage of having the Skyward.io account is you can use it to find out if the location you want to fly is in airspace that requires an Airspace Authorization. You do this by entering the address into the Search feature in the Map section, click at that location in the map and it will tell you if there are any restrictions for that location.
Fly safe and have fun!
