A fair number of aerial shoots in South Florida get flown illegally, and most of the people who paid for them have no idea. The pilot turned up, the drone went up, nothing went wrong, everybody was happy. That is not the same thing as legal. The difference only surfaces on the day something does go wrong, which is a bad day to find out.
Why so much of this coast is controlled
Airspace around a towered airport is drawn as a stack of shelves that get wider as they get higher, so the protected volume reaches a long way past the fence line. In most cities that covers some suburbs. Here it happens to cover the expensive part.
- Miami International (MIA) sits under Class B, the most restrictive category, over the densest part of Miami-Dade
- Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International (FLL) and Palm Beach International (PBI) are Class C
- Fort Lauderdale Executive (FXE), North Perry (HWO), Pompano Beach Airpark (PMP), Boca Raton (BCT), Opa-locka (OPF) and Miami Executive (TMB) each put controlled airspace over populated ground
Lay all of that over a map of Broward, Miami-Dade and Palm Beach and the uncontrolled gaps come out smaller than the controlled parts. If a property is near the coast, near a downtown, or anywhere along the I-95 corridor, assume it is controlled until somebody actually checks.
Controlled does not mean forbidden
This gets lost constantly. Controlled airspace is not a no-fly zone for commercial drones. It is airspace where a Part 107 pilot needs authorization before flying, and getting that authorization is a routine and fairly boring filing that professional operators do all the time.
Some locations clear quickly. Others take longer and come back with altitude conditions attached, usually the ones close in to a major airport or under a low-ceiling part of the shelf. We can obtain authorization to fly in proximity to a major airport, and at quote time we will tell you whether your address looks like the quick kind or the slow kind.
Lead time is the number that matters
Approval can take several days. That one fact should change how you schedule a shoot, and it is the reason we ask for an address before we ask for a date.
- Send the address as soon as the shoot is even likely, not once it is confirmed
- Assume about a week of lead time for anything near FLL, MIA, PBI or a general aviation field
- If the date is fixed and close, say so. There is sometimes a workable alternative nearby, and Monday is a much better day to discover that than Friday
What else is in scope besides the airport
Airspace is the common one but it is not the only thing that can stop a flight. Temporary flight restrictions appear around major events and visiting dignitaries, sometimes with very little notice. Plenty of parks and municipal properties have their own launch and landing rules that have nothing to do with the airspace above them. Flight over people and over moving vehicles has its own set of rules. And night work, including the twilight frame that sells a waterfront listing, needs its own authorization. We hold that one.
How to check before you call anyone
The FAA publishes the UAS Facility Map grids that set the ceilings, and the free apps most pilots use read from that same data. Type your address into one of them and in about thirty seconds you will know whether you are in controlled airspace.
What it will not tell you is whether the flight you have in mind is workable at that address on that date. That takes a conversation. It does tell you which conversation to have, which is worth thirty seconds.
Common questions
Can a drone legally fly near Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International?
Yes, with FAA authorization on file. FLL sits under Class C airspace, so commercial flights nearby need approval before the flight, and approval can take several days.
Do I need to do anything as the property owner?
Usually just site access and a heads-up about anything on the ground we cannot see from a map: gate codes, dogs, active work, neighbors who should be warned. The airspace filing is our side of it.
What happens if the authorization does not come through in time?
We tell you as early as we can and we reschedule. It is the reason we ask for the address at quote time instead of the week of the shoot.
This piece supports two pages worth reading next:
Kaylan flies real estate, construction and inspection work for Papa's Aerial and handles most of the airspace authorization filings that South Florida addresses require.
