Fighter Jets - A New Reason to Fly Your Drone Safely and Legally
Today we were able to somewhat predict the news from preparing for a casual Sunday afternoon drone flight here in Kingston, Ontario.
A part of my preflight checklist for every flight is to check NOTAMs.
As a refresher, and for those that don't know, a NOTAM, or Notice to Airmen, is a type of aeronautical information bulletin issued by national aviation authorities to provide updated information about conditions that could affect the safety of aircraft operations. NOTAMs contain information about airport and navigational aid closures, flight restrictions, dangerous areas, airshow and parachute jump operations, and other operational changes that could impact aviation safety. The information contained in NOTAMs is essential for pilots and air traffic controllers to be aware of before and during a flight. NOTAMs are disseminated through a variety of channels, including electronic databases, flight planning systems, and direct communications with air traffic control.
Drone pilots can view NOTAMs officially through Nav Canada at https://plan.navcanada.ca/wxrecall/ or through various apps.
Personally, I use the Drone Pilot Canada app and when checking NOTAMs today I saw one for CZYZ which refers to the Toronto Flight Information Region (FIR). The Toronto FIR is a flight control and navigation area that covers a large portion of Canadian airspace, including parts of the provinces of Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Nunavut. The CZYZ identifier is used to distinguish this specific flight information region from other flight information regions around the world.
The app showed one NOTAM for CZYZ that was drone related that was prohibiting any flight activity from the surface to 30,000 feet in an area centred near Tobermory which is in the Bruce Peninsula on Lake Huron. The reason was due to an active air defense operation.
Normally I would have assumed that this was due to a military training activity. Well the past week has been anything but normal as it started with the shooting down of a Chinese spy balloon off of the US east coast which was then followed by two separate shoot downs of unidentified aerial objects off of Alaska and then over the Yukon. So I immediately thought about those events and the words air defense and wondered out loud - wow does this mean there is another object being shot down in Canadian airspace? Instead of checking the news during that moment, I instead checked the map on the NAV Drone app to see how big the restricted area was. It was quite small, only concentrated near Tobermory and nowhere near me so I went ahead with my flight and forgot all about it.
Of course later I saw the news and knew from the reporting that the NOTAM I saw was indeed related, "U.S. and Canadian authorities had restricted some airspace over the lake earlier Sunday as planes scrambled to intercept and try to identify the object. The object was octagonal, with strings hanging off, but had no discernable payload, according to a senior administration official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters." After reading this initial description I couldn't help but also notice that there are many octagonal shaped commercial drones such as the DJI S1000 pictured below:
An octocopter drone like this is certainly able to loiter at 20,000 feet or more and it's notionally possible that someone could now expect to have their drone shot down by NORAD fighter jets given current events if somehow their drone is found at such altitudes - if not flying safely and legally.
Drone pilots flying safely and legally in Canada or the US, would only see their drone flying more than 400 feet above ground level with prior permission or due to an emergency situation. In the latter case, they would have the ability to contact the appropriate authorities with the probable location of the drone and the nature of the situation.
As always we advocate to fly safely and legally which includes checking NOTAMs. Register your drones and get certified to fly through a quality training establishment such as Coastal Drone Co. Enroll in their courses and book in-person training with us by clicking the links below:
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