Spoke with the tower for clearance this morning...

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I'm looking to do some filming of a large local bridge that is about 5 miles from a major airport, so I called the tower this morning. I assume the 5 miles is from the end of the runway, which puts much of the bridge within that limit.

After being referred to a supervisor, he said he believed that I would need a waiver from the local FDSO to fly in Class B airspace, but would call and confirm. He called back about 5 minutes later and said that he had confirmed it. Luckily, the southern half of the bridge is out of Class B and normal rules would apply. FYI, air traffic control (ATC) has control over Class B space from 0 to 7000 ft altitude. Class B space is essentially the area around major airports that have aircraft flying using instruments only (IFR). FDSO stands for Flight Standards District Office.

The supervisor was very appreciative of the call and admitted that everybody was new to this and everybody was still learning. At the end of the call, he was kind enough to give me the predicted winds and weather for the day, as he would any pilot. He then asked what drone I was flying and how easy it was to fly.

I am not an expert on the regs, so I don't know with certainty whether this was the correct call. I do appreciate, however, the effort he put into finding out. I urge everyone to approach this with a professional attitude and we can get it ironed out without getting a target painted on our backs.
 
Very informative, and a great experience for you. It just goes to show that if you think things out and use common sense, the results can be very positive. Thanks for sharing, Acroduster.
 
Good job- thanks for going the extra mile!
BTW, I think the distance is measured from the control tower. Can you confirm?
 
Yep that's correct, 5 miles from the tower, it's amazing he found the number to call them. You would be amazed how little they know about the new rules.
Acroduster didn't mention what altitude he would be flying, should be under 400, the tower should of stated he would be no factor to aircraft interference confirming he was out of the the ATA (5 miles and under 400 ft).
 
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Good job calling the tower and thanks for sharing your experience.

These are the kinds of positive experiences that people in the air traffic control system need to have with UAS operators!
 
Sorry that I didn't include it in the original post, but we did talk altitude. I was prepared to stay under 250' while in the Class B space, but ended up staying out of that zone and got some footage up to 380'. The winds were at 20+ mph with gusts a good bit higher than that. After takeoff, when I switched to Fly mode, Solo was sitting at about a 10 degree angle to stay in one place!

When I process the video, I'll post some clips with settings used.
 
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