Is the FAA Tracking Your Drone? (YDQA EP 85)

[@patking8950]

I've always felt that there's no need to worry about FAA or law enforcement tracking you, unless you're flying in a manner that would give them a reason to pay attention to you.

[@vegasrealestatephotography]

There is another layer of detection in Las Vegas that tracks drone activity around the airport and the Strip. I was stopped by police during a flight just off the Strip. I landed the drone and provided the officer with my remote pilot certificate and pulled up the flight authorization on my phone. He took down all my info and I got a call from the FAA about a month later. The from the FAA said his system showed me at a height of 397 feet and he could see my flight path as well. Luckily I had authorization up to 400 feet and the matter was closed after I emailed a copy of my authorization. But yeah, at least in Las Vegas near the airport and Strip, they are tracking your drone. Google Las Vegas case study drone detection for an interesting article about the system.

[@DroneLaunchAcademy]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing! I’m not from Vegas but I’ve heard it’s difficult to get authorization there.

[@bizzfo]

If you’re connected to the internet they can track you if they want to regardless of Remote ID or not.

[@joshogden8958]

This actually happened last year in Vegas during the F1 race. The operator got caught & caught a massive fine ($80k if I remember).

[@DroneLaunchAcademy]

Oh wow! I didn’t hear about that one. Thanks for the info 👍

[@vonheise]

I couldn't care less, I fly when traveling and camping and I video or photograph scenery and don't use the noisy Mavic 3 around people and fly the Mini 4 pro above 100' where few notice it.

[@johnmoss4140]

This is pure bunk, a person flying a drone over the super bowl would certainly not have an active remote ID module on board. The simple reason for remote ID is the UAV delivery industry needs this information for collision avoidance and rather than develop it themselves they bought the FAA to have drone pilots provide the information and pay for the transponders.

[@DroneLaunchAcademy]

You know every basic DJI drone currently comes with the remote ID module now, right? And those don’t do any delivery.