No, you can’t shoot a drone out of the sky!

This is an excerpt from my full post about Drone Rush.

I get it: there are drones in your neighborhood, even on top of your property, and they’re making you uncomfortable. I will never tolerate nuisance or illegal drone flights. But you still can’t launch a drone out of the sky. It’s illegal.

Let me say a few things and make them completely clear.

Drones can:

1. According to the FAA, a drone is an aircraft. It is illegal to take any action that causes an aircraft to crash.
2. A drone pilot is a pilot. It is illegal to harass or assault them in a way that puts the aircraft at risk of crashing. That applies, among other things, to firing a laser pointer at them.
3. Drones can fly over your property. Under current law, drones can fly into your backyard but cannot land, and pilots cannot access your property without permission.

Of course there is more. For more information, please see Parts 1 and 2 of our drone law explainers.

Drones cannot:

1. If your drone has a camera attached, all photos and videos taken are subject to the same privacy laws as other cameras. You can’t use a handheld camera to take pictures of your neighbors in the bushes. Just because your camera has wings doesn’t mean these photos are suddenly legal.
2. Cameras are powerful tools for first-person view (FPV) flights, but the drone must still be within the direct line of sight of the pilot. That means it’s illegal to fly a drone into your neighbor’s backyard if you can’t see it from where you’re standing.
3. Drones cannot fly over people.

There are many things drones cannot do. For now, we will only provide information on drone-free zones. The nuisance drone may already be violating flight or airspace laws.

What should I do?

These laws alone make it very difficult to determine what is legal and what is illegal for drones. More importantly, it’s very difficult to determine what you can do to protect yourself if a rogue pilot is harassing you.

The problem is that this article has already used derivatives of the word “bullying” more than once.

There are numerous laws covering noise complaints, harassment, abuse, trespassing, invasion of privacy, etc. every Some of these laws apply to all drone pilots regarding the use of drones.

What if my neighbor violates one of these laws? (A drone in the sky above your house isn’t threatening your life, so let’s take that part about trespassing laws off the table.)

If you are sure your drone is violating FAA drone flight rules, the FAA has a hotline to report the drone.

Report any other violations, including privacy or harassment issues, to the police. You may also want to collect evidence to present in court or contact your local community association, which may have rules and implications. These can all solve the problem in the long run, but have you considered talking to your neighbors or writing them a letter?

If there’s a drone over your yard, let me put it this way: If my drone is over your house, that means it’s taking photos or video from somewhere else. I’m not snooping on you, I’m just using my right in the sky to get some great photos of nature and the mountain ranges that cover more than half of my neighborhood’s skyline.

If my drone is giving you grief, just make a simple request and I’ll be glad it’s no longer flying over your house.

Even better, I can share that experience with you. I am happy to educate you on how drones work. Many of them feature very wide field of view lenses. Most photos taken at 200 feet are too far away for the camera to capture identifiable facial features. Heck, half of the photos taken at 100 feet are too far away for many drone cameras. My point is that a drone flying over your yard is most likely not spying on you. If so, report it to the police.

Let me be clear: I don’t feel comfortable when my neighbors fly drones over my house. It’s like having another neighbor annoyed by an annoyingly loud car. I can’t shoot cars, I can’t shoot drones, and neither can you.