YDQA: Ep 46 - "What are the rules and regulations when it comes to alcohol or drugs and flying drones?"

John Dickow: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back another episode of your drone questions answered. I'm John Duca with the drone launch Academy here to find the answers to your drone questions. Today's question is a good one. It's what are the rules and regulations when it comes to alcohol or drugs and flying drones?

And so today I have with me founder of DLA. David Young here to answer the question. David, thanks for joining me today.

David Young: What's up, John? Good to be back for another one. Exciting topic. Drugs and alcohol and drones always not a good combo.

John Dickow: As we will learn here in this episode. So, I know there's a bunch of kind of different scenarios, different kind of substances that may have different kind of rules.

So let's start just broadly tell me kind of what are the rules say if you're out there? Having fun flying recreationally with a couple of beers.

David Young: Can I get in trouble? short answer is yes, depending on a few factors. So I think it'd be good for this conversation to sort of break it down in a few ways.

Uh, number one, we'll start with the. Part 107 regulations, which dictate commercial drone operations, we'll look at that, what the factors are to consider, and then we'll look at what it says [00:01:00] for the recreational rules. we'll break down each one, and then maybe we can go through some scenarios where you would get in trouble or wouldn't get in trouble.

You're flying. Maybe let's start with commercial. So if you have your Part 1 0 7 certificate, your remote pilot certificate, and you wanna fly drones, for any business purpose, you have to follow those rules. Well, in those rules. If you wanna get nice and technical, part 1 0 7 0.27. So 0.27, uh, says.

Essentially, hey, if you're flying a drone or you're manipulating the flight controls or you're acting as a remote pilot command or visual observer, basically, if you're on the crew at all, it just says you have to comply with these other provisions. And it points to 91. 17, which essentially is just the part of the rules that talk about regular manned aviation. Like if I was going to go fly a Cessna or I was going to do some other type of regular flight operation.

and so those rules, they say apply just to drones. So what that says is you can't act as a crew member. of an aircraft. with number one, there's four things. So number one is within eight hours of consuming any alcoholic beverage. So if at [00:02:00] noon you have a beer for lunch and you want to fly a drone at six p.

m. Even though you're probably like totally fine, you're not, you don't feel any different. You would technically be violating that rule. So number one, anything within eight hours. Number two is just general. While under the influence of alcohol. So that's just sort of a catch all number three. It says using any drug that affects the person's faculties in any way contrary to safety.

And then number four, basically having a blood alcohol level of 0. 04 or greater. So, you know, you're like blown in the breathalyzer, if you get 0. 04 or greater, so any of those. Um, so let's walk through a couple scenarios of what that might look like. So we already talked about you have a drink at lunch, maybe even just have one drink, but you want to fly your drone at five or six.

Technically that is against the rules and the FAA could slap some penalties on you for that. Another one is that, let's say, you know, Friday night. And you're raging hard with some people or something, and you have a ton of drinks and you get blackout drunk on a Friday night. And then Saturday afternoon, let's say noon, 2 [00:03:00] PM, you have a drone job you're supposed to do, or you're flying for your employer or something like that.

You know, technically it's been longer than eight hours, but you might have a blood alcohol level of higher than 0. 04. Uh, and so then you would again be in the violation of rules. Let's go for another example. Could be, you've had, Ankle surgery. And, you know, you're not drinking at all, but they prescribe you some like Percocet or oxy or something, right.

To take for the pain afterwards, let's say it's been a week. You can kind of get around on a crutches or a new scooter or whatever. And you're, and you're out there to fly for your job. But you've taken some pain meds, you know, that would probably, qualify under, impacting your coordination, your safety judgment, you know, I think if you had some drugs like narcotics in your system, even if they're legal and prescribed or whatever, That would fall under being under the influence of some drugs.

So all of those could classify you as against the rules. Now more in that, like if you go down later in that section, it talks about what the FAA is allowed to get. So let's say you go and for some reason you do take a [00:04:00] breathalyzer test shortly after flying a drone or anything like that. if you intend to keep your license, You have to release those medical records to the FAA if the test has been done within four hours of the event, like the drone flight.

So let's say you're flying your drone at 6 p. m. and an FAA enforcement guy comes up and says, Hey, you're stumbling around while you're flying this drone, and there's a cop nearby and they give you a breathalyzer test, an hour after the event happened or whatever. Technically, you have to release those medical records or, test results to the FAA so they can make those determinations.

So, those are the rules for Commercial operators, in regards to drugs and alcohol. Main thing you need to remember is eight hours. And if you're getting your pilot's license, they say eight hours bottle to throttle, basically eight hours from your last drink to when you can touch the throttle of an aircraft.

So same thing for drones, right? So eight hours, no matter what, from your last drink 0. 04 or greater, you're disqualified no matter how long the last drink has been. And then the other one is basically if you appear to be under the influence of any drugs or alcohol. Technically that is [00:05:00] against the rules as well.

So that's part one of seven commercial rules. Now to what you were saying earlier, you're saying like, Hey, let's go, you know, we're at a party hanging out and we're not flying for any commercial reason. you guys are like, Oh wow, beautiful sunset. Let's throw the drone up and uh, and take a look at what the sunset looks like from the sky, you know?

So that would be under a totally different section, that's technically under, something called the 44 809 exemption. Again, you probably don't need to remember that, but it's essentially the part of the law that carves out an exemption for model aircraft and recreational drones. Saying, hey, we got some separate rules.

Two things that that section of the rule states is number one, you have to operate your drone underneath the rules and policies of a model aircraft organization. And so the main one, or one of the main ones is the Academy of Model Aeronautics and their safety code says that you cannot operate a drone under the influence of any alcohol or drugs.

You know, that would be a rule that would be in place that they say you have to follow. And another section of it [00:06:00] says that, the administrator of the FAA can still pursue enforcement action against a person operating any drone. They say, I'm an aircraft that endangers the safety of the national airspace system.

So that's pretty broad, but it could encompass, drugs, alcohol. Even if you're flying recreationally and a police officer or someone else, I don't know if people from the FAA are just roaming about late at night, but if they are, and they see you operating, you're holding the beer and doing crazy stuff.

even though you're recreational, they could still enforce it under that section and saying that, Hey, you're also not following any community based, guidelines from those organizations I mentioned. So, those are the rules for. commercial and also recreational. basically, I think if you stick to the commercial rules, you should always be fine under the recreational rules.

But that is sort of the scenarios that you have when you're thinking about drinking, using prescription drugs, recreational drugs, and combining that with flying a drone.

John Dickow: very good to know. And I mean, you had mentioned, you know, if you want to keep your license, that's, that can happen. Break these rules, you can lose your license.

do you think fines could be involved or

David Young: is it Oh, certainly. [00:07:00] So you and I have actually had a previous episode on what the fines could be for breaking different parts of the 1 0 7 regulations. So if you're interested in a lot of the nitty gritty details, you can go back and find that episode.

but you can be fined for breaking them on a recreational level or, you know, operating, doing something commercial without that commercial license. Or essentially breaking any part of these part 107 regulations for each time you break something, each infraction, whether you go too high or, you know, you go into airspace, you're not supposed to be in, or you're operating under the influence of alcohol.

the penalties go up and up and up, and the more and more you're putting people at danger, the higher the severities of those penalties typically are. So if you're getting into the, I'm mixing drugs and alcohol with operating a drone territory, you're going to get on the higher end of, That sort of penalty spectrum, I would imagine, I'm not an FAA enforcement officer, but just from what I've read in their policy documents, that's what it would appear to me.

John Dickow: Very good to know. Well, thank you, David, for coming on, this is a pretty serious topic, and the consequences could be just as serious. So, play it safe out there, everyone. And hey, if you have a [00:08:00] drone question, we will find the answer to it. Go ahead and hop onto YDQA. io type it in there. We'll see it. We'll find someone who can answer it. Or if you're part of the drone launch connect community, type it in there. We'll see it. We'll find someone to answer the question until then we'll see

David Young: in the sky.