Manned aviation basement level?

[wrench567]

Hello all.
It was a beautiful day so I took my H to the beach. While flying over the water at an altitude of about 180 feet according to the ST16. A small plane pulling a banner entered the airspace. I withdrew the H back to my location and waited for the plane to leave. Shortly after that another plane flew bye at a very low altitude. Then on the second battery and at the same altitude of 200 feet a third plane very fast flew between me and my H. I'm sure if he was to strike it, the FAA would surely be prosecuting me. I was always under the impression that manned aviation has a 500 foot basement unless taking off or landing. Am I wrong? After that, I packed up and went to a different spot.
BTW. Too much sun glare to see if there were any big sharks looking for a seal lunch. But there were a lot of seals on the beach.
Pete.

 

[Murray Martz]

Hello all.
It was a beautiful day so I took my H to the beach. While flying over the water at an altitude of about 180 feet according to the ST16. A small plane pulling a banner entered the airspace. I withdrew the H back to my location and waited for the plane to leave. Shortly after that another plane flew bye at a very low altitude. Then on the second battery and at the same altitude of 200 feet a third plane very fast flew between me and my H. I'm sure if he was to strike it, the FAA would surely be prosecuting me. I was always under the impression that manned aviation has a 500 foot basement unless taking off or landing. Am I wrong? After that, I packed up and went to a different spot.
BTW. Too much sun glare to see if there were any big sharks looking for a seal lunch. But there were a lot of seals on the beach.
Pete.

If you did your due diligence, I see no reason why you should not be able to report the incident......providing you had their tail number. Remember, if all your ducks are in a row, you followed all of the rules, were in the correct air space, you should be good. On the other hand, a call to get clarity on a hypothetical situation might also be a good way to go as well. If they verify a person would have been in the right and the pilot was in violation, I would then report the pilot as it was very dangerous what happened.

 

[DoomMeister]

It actually depends on whether they were flying over the water or the beach as I’m assuming you were on the coast. Over the beach they have to maintain 500’+ AGL unless considered unpopulated and they still need to give a 500’ clearance (a bubble) to any structure or vehicle. Over the open water there is no restriction other than maintaining 500’ clearance from vessels or heavily populated with swimmers. Rotary aircraft do not have that 500’ AGL restriction anywhere.

 

[wrench567]

It actually depends on whether they were flying over the water or the beach as I’m assuming you were on the coast. Over the beach they have to maintain 500’+ AGL unless considered unpopulated and they still need to give a 500’ clearance (a bubble) to any structure or vehicle. Over the open water there is no restriction other than maintaining 500’ clearance from vessels or heavily populated with swimmers. Rotary aircraft do not have that 500’ AGL restriction anywhere.

It's an inlet to a harbor with sand bars and boat traffic. There are populated beaches and sand bars populated with grey seals. I have flown there many times and never seen any manned aviation there before. Once in awhile a coastguard helicopter but never a fixed wing. This was the first time a banner plane at this location. It's not that popular with swimmers. The third plane was too fast to get the whole tail number.
If you look up coastguard beach Chatham Massachusetts. I was standing in the parking lot on the bluff above the beach. Across the boat channel on the other side of the sand bar is the Cape Cod national seashore. That is a NFZ. The harbor master flies their Phantom to spy on the sharks from the exact same location.
Pete.

 

[wrench567]

I just had a talk with the former Chatham airport manager. He said that fixed wing aircraft have a 1000 foot basement over people. 500 foot over open water. He managed the airport for 37 years and would get calls all the time. If the caller had the tail number, he would report it to the FAA. Beside the advertisement craft that would have to have a special permit and detailed flight plan, they have to stay over water. The banner towing plane was in the right. My neighbor knows the pilot very well. The other two planes were in the wrong. He said they were probably transient and not familiar with the regulations regarding shoreline flights. If caught, the FAA with the NTSB would investigate.
Pete.

 

[Ty Pilot]

I agree with what the others have said, but would like to add my thoughts.

This is a topic that has come up a number of times on another forum where there tends to be a lot of traffic, and in particular - neewbs.

What I have seen is that these conversations (where manned 'basements' and drone 'ceilings are discussed), is that some build a false sense of safety that can or may tend to give a drone pilot a sense that there is airspace 'carved out' for us and that as long as we are in it - we're good. I have actually responded to threads where drone pilots talk about our airspace.

There is no such airspace. Anytime a drone and a manned aircraft occupy the same airspace, it is the drone that must yield, always and forever. I am sure everyone here knows that but just in case others read this I feel the topic needs to have this mentioned.

I would add that: in those instances where we are confronted with such an airspace conflict, we usually have just a split second to decide a course of action. And it could be detrimental if; when one sees such a conflict, their first thought is to try an ascertain who is in the "wrong" airspace, rather than just see and avoid.