YDQA: Ep 50 - "How To Legally Fly a Drone in a National Park?"

John Dickow: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome back. Another episode of your drone questions answered. I'm John Dicko here to find the answers to your drone questions. Now, today's question is how to legally fly in a national park. We know normally you can't fly in a national park, but under what circumstances can you today I have with me founder of drone launch Academy, David Young, joining me again here, David, thanks

David Young: for being here.

What's up, John? Good to be back. yeah, like you said, it seems common that everybody knows that you cannot fly drones in a national park. Whenever you like Google something, it always says, Oh, you can't fly. You can't fly. And that's just everybody being a downer. I want to know how you can fly in a national park.

we can dive into it. one way is to do it illegally, which I would not recommend, right? You just roll the dice, you get out there, you try to look over your shoulder, make sure no one's watching, you put your drone up. but the penalties for that, not so good. It's like up to 5, 000 and I think technically six months in jail.

if they're going to throw the book at you, that could happen. I don't know about you, but I'm not going to take that chance, doing that, so. That is step one. if you're living life on the edge and [00:01:00] you like to do illegal activity, if you're like, kind of guy stealing purses and robbing banks, maybe this is the path for you.

If you're like the rest of us, and you want to try to follow the rules at least, or not get in trouble, there is a path. again, I've been in the journey industry for a long time and, and I've always heard people say, yeah, I can't fly in national parks. I'm like, well, you know what? I bet Discovery Channel could figure out how to fly in a national park, right?

Like somebody has got to be able to do it. So how is this possible? So I went back and looked at where, how was this rule actually first made? So back in 2014, there was a Policy Memorandum issued by the United States Department of the Interior National Park Service. and it is called Policy Memorandum 14 05.

If you want to get like real, into the nitty gritty. And this is what sets forth the, restriction against drones saying, Hey, we're going to make drones sort of illegal to fly in national parks, according to sort of the United

David Young: States. Regulations and policies. So this is a 13 page document.

We will link to it in the description to the show notes. But if you just, if you just type in National Park Service Policy Memorandum 14 [00:02:00] 05 into Google, it'll come up. 13 page PDF. most of it talks about why they're banning drones and all that. But if you scroll down to something called Exhibit B, It talks about, exceptions because one of the exceptions is, there's a couple different uses, but it says, Hey, we have to allow special use permits, because there are going to be instances where it may be appropriate for someone to fly drones in the park.

and they list up a couple other ones like scientific data collection and some things like that. So if you're a scientist and you're doing scientific data collection, you might qualify under that, exemption. But for the rest of us who maybe we have a project or a client who really wants to do something cool there, or, something else that has a legitimate purpose and you are a licensed drone pilot, this actually doesn't say it has to be commercial or recreational.

but we'll get into that in a second. So if you scroll down to exhibit B, it's on page 7 of the PDF, and it's labeled, Special Park Uses Permitting Guidance for Unmanned Aircraft.

So, this is like, hey, this is giving guidance to the park's superintendents to say if someone wants to fly their drone and they want to apply for a special use [00:03:00] permit, here's the criteria you should look at. When reviewing their request. So use this to your advantage to, know how to craft your request so that they can approve it, right?

what happens just so you know, the process flow is you would submit it to the, superintendent of that national park. I don't know enough about national parks to know how many there are. I imagine maybe they're by region or maybe by specific park, but I would guess you could Google superintendent.

Yellowstone or whatever park you are specifically looking at Everglades, and find who that contact is. I'm assuming you would go through one of their People in their office, maybe not directly to them. But once it goes to them and they say, yes, I'm on board with you. I think this is a good idea. And I'll, go through their decision criteria here in a minute.

The next process is that they would submit your request to the Associate Director of Visitor and Resource Protection. Also known as the ADVRP, in this document all over the place. So then that person, I think that's at like corporate, you know, National Park Service headquarters, I imagine. Sounds like they're over everything.

They have to approve [00:04:00] it. So if you're just like, Hey, I just, I'm going on vacation and I'd like to get cool shots and you want to go through all this rigmarole to do this. I imagine. They're not going to be approving tons of those, but if you had more of a legitimate reason, I think this is a process at least that exists that you can try.

Okay. So the decision process, there are 7 things that they. ask these superintendents to look at, when determining whether they should even submit this to the ADVRP. Number one, will it violate FAA rules and regulations, for commercial use of unmanned aircraft? Obviously that would probably be a downer and say no.

two, will it cause injury or damage to park resource, park resources? Number three, Will it be contrary to the purposes for which the park was established, or blah, blah, blah, will it upset the peace, the tranquility, wilderness, historic, yada, yada, yada? Number four, will unreasonably interfere with visitor service or other program activities or administration?

Five, will it substantially impair the operations of public facilities or services of NPS, National Park [00:05:00] Service, concessioners or contractors? Number six, will it present a clear and present danger to public health and safety? That's probably going to rule you out too. And number seven, will it result in significant conflict with other existing uses of the park?

So basically you want to be like, listen, this isn't going to bother anybody. I'm not going to mess with anything that you're doing. No one's going to even know I'm here. it sounds like your chances go up if you can make that happen. Then it talks about, another thing that I was less familiar with talking about, some specific director's orders and whatnot, but it also says it will have to be compliant with the national environmental policy act.

69 sometimes. So just maybe I don't maybe keep that in mind. but what happens is if the superintendent looks at your stuff and says, okay, I get it. You've showed me how you're not going to interfere with any of these seven things, or it's not going to be a hindrance. Let's do it. So they have to submit a memorandum of request and they have to reference this policy 14 05.

Then you have to have a statement at minimum that explains number one, the activities that would be permitted by the special use permit. Number two, why the permitted activities would be [00:06:00] appropriate and compatible with the values and resources of the park. Obviously I'm just reading this. Number three.

any potential for controversy. Number four, contact information at the park for further questions. Once they do that, then the copy of the proposed special use permit with all of its terms and conditions. All right. And then the next section talks about special use permit terms and conditions. it says special use permits that, permit launching landing or operating unmade aircraft from the land or from the water should clearly identify the areas for the activities within the park.

It says it also needs to contain appropriate terms and conditions to make sure that the unmanned aircraft is going to have safe operations and mitigate any unacceptable impacts. And so it says, in addition to that, the standard stuff, on all permits, the following conditions are required. Number one, Unmanned aircraft cannot disturb or harass wildlife.

Number two, unmanned aircraft may not interfere with National Park Service search and rescue, law enforcement, or emergency operations. Number three, unmanned aircraft will not be flown in a reckless manner or outside of your designated area. Four, operators may not operate unmanned aircraft while under the influence of [00:07:00] alcohol or drugs.

That's already part one seven rule. Inexperienced unmanned aircraft operators must be accompanied and assisted by an experienced operator. So if you're doing your permit application or you're talking to them, maybe highlight your experience, the number of hours you've had, how you've had all this safe.

you have to avoid flying directly over people, vessels, vehicles, structures. so just stay away from people and property, other than just land. The next one is operators must report all accidents involving injury, even like a first aid finger, you know, finger cut or something, or any property damage.

And it gives you some other information about that. you got to keep the drone within visual on a site, which is already a Part 107 rule. And you have to have sufficient liability insurance or proof that you're a part of another organization like the AMA, that already has coverage. So you're gonna need insurance.

So the big takeaways from this is, you know, basically abiding by all Part 107 stuff, having insurance, highlighting your experience, and highlighting how this is going to have basically zero impact on the existing park or park experience. Then it gives a lot of, optional considerations to consider, so like safety lines, how far away people are going to be from the drone operations, keeping spectators away, time of [00:08:00] day, Like pilots and operators announcing takeoff and landing and how they can handle emergency situations carrying first aid kits Making sure there's no flammable liquids Considering weather like how do you handle weather?

What are your weather parameters? What wind speeds will you tolerate? What kind of size and weight of the drones you're gonna fly? Making sure you have a single pilot on a single drone. Again, that's another Part 107 rule. So all these are listed. So, if you're in this document, you can review that. But if you're just listening to this podcast, I wanted to run through those so you have an idea of the sort of detail that they're looking for in these requests.

so yeah, that's it. I mean, basically you have to follow the Part 107 rules and stuff anyways, but if you're going to do that, you have to go through this process. Now it has a contact in here, somebody Lee Dixon. and it gives. Their contact information, but this is from 2014 10 years ago.

So I imagine if Lee is still in at the national park service in the specific position, that would be amazing. But I imagine that they are not, but the title of his position is special park uses program manager. So that may still exist. but either way you would start with the superintendent. At the park you want to fly at, and then go from there, look up this policy and make sure you can check as many boxes or uncheck the, you [00:09:00] know, the boxes that they don't want.

but this is how you do it. So if you can get through this process and the ADPRM issues, your special use permit with all those parameters and terms and conditions. You're good to fly in a national park, easy as that.

John Dickow: Well, and it sounds like there is a little bit of work involved, a little bit of research involved.

If you want to do an A, you really are going to want to do it first in order to kind of put that work, in. and also it's the interesting thing when, when it comes to like the superintendent review is just a lot of it seems kind of left to interpretation a little bit by that superintendent.

some takeaways from what you were saying, it sounds like you should do your homework, you should be detailed on your plan as much as possible and even had some, contingency plans, You know, when it comes to dealing with, other people and safety precautions, all that kind of stuff that you can show, during your application

David Young: process.

But let's say you live near National Park or something, and you've got either a drone business or video production or something. If you can continue to work and navigate this process, you know, like maybe build a relationship with the superintendent there or something, right. And you can get an approval to fly drones there.

And you'd cornered the market on anybody who wants commercial [00:10:00] video. You know what I mean? So I had to prove to fly in this national park. I think that would be a pretty sweet, thing to say that not, not everybody has. So it may be worth the trouble to go through for some people.

If you know, you're planning on being there all the time, or if it's a big enough production where it makes sense from a financial standpoint to go through all that trouble. Yeah, absolutely. I mean,

John Dickow: if anyone's listening or watching this, I mean, if you've been through this experience, if you've been through this process, it'd be great to get some feedback from you, in a comment or something.

I'd love to hear about that.

David Young: but that's it. I'm glad we touched on it. Cause I've seen a lot of, you can't fly drones in national parks, but I don't really see people talking about where did that even come from? And what are the exceptions? And so,

John Dickow: well, nice to know there's a pathway to actually doing it.

Well, thanks, David. Thanks for coming on. This was, this was a great question and it's always a pleasure having you come on and provide a detailed answers to these questions. So thank you again. And Hey, if you've got a question, anything related to drones, please send us a message. We'd be happy to find the answer to it.

You can find, you can send a question over ydqa. io, or if you're part of the drone launch connect community, go ahead and type your question in there. We'll see it. We will find the answer to it in a future episode until then we'll see in the [00:11:00] sky.