Has a very easy answer in the US: No.
You do not own your airspace. The FAA owns your airspace.
You can build a tall structure (subject to local laws). But anything above that is outside your control.
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This article, however, is about Ireland.
You do not own your airspace. The FAA owns your airspace.
You can build a tall structure (subject to local laws). But anything above that is outside your control.
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This article, however, is about Ireland.
While you're not wrong in practice, it's actually a surprisingly complicated area of law.
The FAA doesn't "own" the airspace, it's a public right-of-way and every citizen has the right to transit it. See 49 USC §40103: "A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace".
The FAA gets to set policy on how to ensure safety, just like the Coast Guard sets rules for the safe navigation of public waterways (but neither "owns" the air/water): "the Administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration shall develop plans and policy for the use of the navigable airspace and assign by regulation or order the use of the airspace necessary to ensure the safety of aircraft and the efficient use of airspace."
Now, where it gets complicated is the definition of "navigable airspace". A common definition is either 360 feet or 500 feet above the tallest structure on a parcel of land, but the case law isn't consistent on this - especially when you consider that some aircraft (like helicopters) can legally navigate lower than that. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_rights#United_States
For example, a drone weighing over 250 grams must be registered with the FAA, no matter what height it is flown. Even if it's your own backyard at eye level.
This is a little weird, but factual.
That's not true for helicopters and UAVs within sight of their controllers, but I feel sorry for the people who bought a house not near and airport, and now have to deal with a buzzing swarm overhead.
Makes sense. If castle doctrine applied to the skies, people could take potshots at low flying aircraft above their house. I guess that's one way to prevent becoming a flyover state...
This kinda begs the question of what is meant by "airspace." If the term means a geometric volume that is generally occupied by materials in a gaseous state, then does the FAA own the airspace within one's home? Does the FAA control how cars drive down the airspace of a road? No, that is absurd.
The common use of aircraft smaller than humans and capable of performing navigation faster than humans is expanding a previously relatively stable boundary of what Federal law and rules call "navigable airspace." Thus, I think it is incorrect to say "The FAA owns your airspace." since the FAA explicitly does not control airspace below a certain altitude over most people's houses.
So there’s that.
It will evaluate such structures for their effect on air traffic, and local authorities will almost universally follow their findings when approving construction.
That said, I don't know of any aircraft operator who doesn't have some form of insurance. If nothing else because the banks demand it.
The state transport authority or the automobile driver?