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Comment by metadat | Hacker News Reader

Was the drone picture in the top of TFA taken legally? I'm confident the FB sign is less than 5 miles from Palo Alto airport.

I checked and it's 4.3 miles by car, probably more like 3 or 3.5 miles as the crow flies, making this flight a violation of Federal law.

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I just checked a LAANC interface (Aloft Air Control) for 1 Hacker Way. Flights up to 250 ft AGL can be authorized in there. It's just inside KPAO controlled space, but that does not mean flights can't be authorized -- authorizations are the whole reason LAANC exists.

Why do you think they'd be prohibited by federal law?

Thanks for the info, I didn't know about this!

Maybe I'm missing it, but what in the photo are you basing your assumption that the photo was from a drone? It could easily have been taken from a helicopter, for example, and the general lack of resolution reinforces that thought to me.

Also, it's definitely possible to get an airspace waiver to fly within 5 miles of an airport, so that's another possibility of doing it legally. Those airspace authorizations for low level flights aren't particularly difficult though get, as I understand it (I'm a pilot, but not a drone pilot, though I know a few)

You can check this photo on Getty and notice the other similar looking photos that are likely taken at the same time (by same photographer) and it does not look to be a helicopter, if it was then the photographer would have provided even higher elevation photos.

Object name: dji_0321

Strongly suggests a drone - No other metadata on the image/getty images however.

Search the photographer's name. You will see a lot of photos of the same location from him. But the elevation range indicates a drone not a heli.

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