Principles | dronereporters.org

Using a drone requires more than technical flying skills. You also need to plan carefully, obey regulations, respect others, and think creatively.

This page offers general guidance, not legal advice. Consult current FAA rules and local restrictions before each flight.

In the United States, if you want to fly a drone for commercial purposes, including journalism, you need to have a Part 107 certification from the FAA. You’ll also need to keep your certification current by completing an online course every two years. Here’s one of the many free videos that can help you prepare, and here’s the FAA’s study guide.
Always abide by FAA regulations and use a site like skyvector.com to check for restricted airspace, temporary flight restrictions, airports, or heliports in a place you plan to fly.
Know that in some places, such as national parks and wilderness areas, it’s not legal to fly a drone, so don’t do it!
Never fly a drone near a wildfire because that’s also illegal and can ground the air operations.
Some infrastructure, such as dams and power plants, may also be off-limits to drones, so be sure to check and follow location-specific regulations.
Many drones have a built-in geofencing system that will prevent you from flying in restricted areas, but don’t solely rely on that feature.
Be sure to follow all of these FAA rules: “You can fly during daylight (30 minutes before official sunrise to 30 minutes after official sunset, local time) or in twilight if your drone has anti-collision lighting. Minimum weather visibility is three miles from your control station. The maximum allowable altitude is 400 feet above the ground, higher if your drone remains within 400 feet of a structure. Maximum speed is 100 mph (87 knots).”

Some people love drones, but plenty of people hate them. They’re bothered by the noise. They’re concerned about their privacy. Just because it’s legal to fly a drone somewhere doesn’t mean you should necessarily do it.
Remember that you’re an ambassador for other drone pilots and you influence public perceptions of the activity.
Always respect privacy and be cognizant of private property. Different jurisdictions have varying laws about drones, so be sure to abide by them.
Avoid flying over crowds or in a manner that poses a risk to people below, including yourself.
Be sure not to disturb wildlife with your noisy aircraft. Birds striking your drone, or vice versa, are a real danger, and I’ve had a few occasions when my drone seemed to attract avian interest. If there are birds in the area, it’s best to land and seek out a new location.

One of the requirements for flying a drone is having eyes on it at all times, which is known as visual line-of-sight.
You can also have a visual observer help out on this task, but regardless of who’s watching, you should always keep the drone in your field of view.
Depending on where you’re flying, you may face a variety of obstacles that threaten to take down and potentially destroy your drone. Avoiding collisions is one of your primary responsibilities as a pilot. While many drones now come with anti-collision technologies, you shouldn’t blindly rely on them to save you.
In addition to scanning the sky, stay aware of your surroundings on the ground. Flying a drone sometimes requires intense focus, and it always demands that you be looking upward, so be careful of tripping, walking into traffic, or otherwise injuring yourself—all things I’ve nearly done.
Always be mindful of your battery strength and don’t try to push the envelope. Leave an ample reserve for wind or unexpected delays.

When flying a drone, you need to work with three key devices: the drone, its camera, and the controller you’re holding. Mastery of this three-fold system requires time and practice, so be sure to learn the details and understand what all those settings do (see the photo and video pages for more on the specifics).
Find a place where you can practice flying, experiment with different settings, and try out new angles or movements.
Consult manuals or online resources to learn more about the capabilities of your drone, such as the return-to-home function, panoramic images, and automated movements.
As with any activity, you can get rusty if you haven’t flown a drone in a while, so try to do some low-stakes practice flights to keep your skills sharp.

Keep thinking like a journalist and plan your shots

Always think about your journalistic purpose and what story you’re trying to tell. Is it water scarcity and shrinking reservoirs? The natural beauty of a threatened place? The impact of an industry on the landscape?
Have a flight plan before you take off. Where will you be flying? What angles are you seeking to use? What features on the ground are of interest?
Scout out locations ahead of time by using Google Earth. When you zoom in and switch to 3D mode, the maps offer a great way to identify potential places to fly and features to capture.
Think about what the aerial view can reveal about a place, such as scale, contrast, perspective, and environmental change. Sometimes you won’t realize what’s special about a place until you’re flying over it, so one of my first moves is to head straight up and do a 360-degree rotation to check out the surroundings.

My natural instinct is to always look for new and exciting locations. However, it may be worthwhile to revisit the same place over time to capture changes, such as declining or rising reservoir levels and changes in vegetation due to the seasons.
The angle of the sun makes a huge difference in lighting, so different times of day may be better or worse for your purposes.
Make sure your system’s GPS is recording data so you have that on hand if you need to pay a repeat visit. Geotagging content also makes it easier to integrate imagery into data visualizations.

While the aerial perspective can be revealing, you’ll also need to add context in captions or accompanying content to help viewers make sense of what they’re seeing.
Look for ways to integrate the aerial perspective with on-the-ground reporting, such as interviews and research. If you’re working with a writer or other journalist, make sure you’re clear on their needs and the narrative of their story.
Learn more about the places you’re filming and the processes that are playing out below your drone, be they natural or human-caused. For example, photographing rivers in the Southwest sparked my interest in fluvial geomorphology—the study of how rivers shape landscapes. By consulting a textbook and reading some online resources, I gained a vocabulary and framework to describe what I was filming.