I got a drone last year. I've flown it quite a few times over the last year and half or so. There have been a few times I was sure that I was within legal flying areas but actually wasn't. You cant fly above 400 feet and you cant fly within 5 miles of an airport. I went online, looked at Google maps at airports near me. I measured the distance and I was outside of 5 miles of any airport I was aware of. So I took my drone out. I had someone approach me just as I was about to take off. He told me, he flew drones for his company and that I was within a no fly zone. I debated with him about looking it up and measuring that I was more than 5 miles away from the 2 airports I was aware of. So he pulled up an app on his phone. I was unaware at the time, that a app existed to show no fly zones.
The app is called b4ufly and is made from the FAA.
This first screenshot shows where I was at. I was well outside the 5 mile radius of DFW airport, and well outside the radius of Alliance airport. Little did I know that the no fly zone for DFW was greater than the "5 mile rule" preached about. I did not know about the 3-4 other 1 lane hardly ever used airports either. So if I had flown, I would have potentially been in violation of air space for 4-5 airports. I also had no idea that helipads count as well. Just about every city has at least a few helipads around.
After checking the DFW area out I noticed there are little airports and helipads all over. There is no legal area to fly within DFW. The screenshot below shows the DFW area.
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It's crazy. There's hardly no place you can fly. Easier would be to just get a commercial pilot's license and start flying regional flights. I hear they get to sleep on the flights too. Oh yeah, but the pay sucks.
I sometimes feel that way too.