Restricted Airspace

Perhaps the best feature of OK2Fly is its realtime restricted airspace indicator. Restricted airspace is a zone of airspace that is ring-fenced and within which controls are placed on all aircraft (including drones) above and beyond the normal rules about heights etc.

By way of example, let’s have a look at my home patch. I live within the confines of an area of restricted airspace called R421A. This exists due to the Fleet Air Arm base in Nowra from which military aircraft (mainly helicopters) operate. The goods news is that R421A (and its adjoining zones) are not always active and that there are times of the day and days of the week when I can fly my drone.

Previously, finding out when that airspace is active was a nightmare. I could either attempt to decipher the official NOTAMs (complete with conversion from universal time to NSW time) or I could use an app. There are a couple of apps, (designed for actual pilots, not muppets like me with remote control lunchboxes) that will show when the airspace is active or not, but setting them up is a shit-fight and they have annual fees of over $100.

Now all I have to do is fire up OK2Fly and it shows me instantly if I can fly or not. Take a look at the screenshot to the left and you can see that it also shows when the airspace is active, and I can see that at the moment I can fly in the mornings up until 10am and avoid the wrath of the sheriffs. When that circles’s dark red it’s not legal to fly and when it’s just an outline, I can legally fly. Easy peasy.