The FAA very clearly has jurisdiction to “all navigable airspace” which is broadly defined as “all airspace immediately above ground level”.
Which is to say, there’s no minimum height threshold under which you could fly a drone (outdoors) where the FAA doesn’t have full legal jurisdiction.
You can say you feel it’s overreach, but it’s well established that the courts do not agree.
Having said all of that, I definitely agree that the states have been doing a pretty shit job of asserting their rights across the board.
Of course it isn’t just individual states. Congress as a whole has been happily ceding power to the executive branch for a few decades now - which is largely how we’ve gotten to this point.
> You can say you feel it’s overreach, but it’s well established that the courts do not agree.
I don't get the impression that's the case. Historically the aircraft in question were large and expensive and very often traveling between states at high altitude. The FAA wasn't harassing for example hang gliders staying within 1000 feet of the ground.
So not only was the federal government generally not interfering with individuals going about local activities, the few exceptions were people unlikely to want to take it to court.
Now a federal agency somehow thinks they can (for example) regulate delivery vehicles operating locally? That's obviously completely absurd. They'd have zero standing to regulate pizza delivery drivers so why are pizza delivery drones any different?
Not that I have much hope of a sensible resolution. The FCC similarly magically receives the power to regulate local activities regardless of the constitution and that one has always been invasive and yet the courts have allowed it.
But planes don't normally fly very low except when taking off and landing. Below 500' AGL and away from airports is normally not the realm of airplanes. Go above 500' AGL and you have a whole host of FAA compliance issues because now you are in plane space.
We run into this with drone filming from county and state lands. The governments assert a right to the airspace above their parks, which is almost certainly unenforceable. However, the governments do issue permits, which one can imagine become significantly more limited in scope once an airspace lawsuit is filed. Ergo, the courts can say whatever they want, but in practice it's even more restrictive than that.
The FAA very clearly has jurisdiction to “all navigable airspace” which is broadly defined as “all airspace immediately above ground level”.
Which is to say, there’s no minimum height threshold under which you could fly a drone (outdoors) where the FAA doesn’t have full legal jurisdiction.
You can say you feel it’s overreach, but it’s well established that the courts do not agree.
Having said all of that, I definitely agree that the states have been doing a pretty shit job of asserting their rights across the board.
Of course it isn’t just individual states. Congress as a whole has been happily ceding power to the executive branch for a few decades now - which is largely how we’ve gotten to this point.