USA Class E Transition Area

[Skyward Imaging]

Just trying to help others not turn down jobs here. Understanding the airspaces seems pretty straight forward but it was brought to my attention by an airport manager of all people that some are turning down jobs because of not understanding Class E Transition Areas. I am planning a flight for a client of mine and we are going to be traveling to southern Utah. This particular job lands right on the boundaries of Class E Airspace. This is called the Class E Transition Area. It's anywhere inside the faded magenta area on your sectional map. Notice the pin almost center of the map.

This is the area I am talking about. Today while acquainting myself with the airport manager down there he told me that 3 people had called him asking for "Permission" to fly inside Class E Airspace at those coordinates. Just a friendly reminder, if you ask them if you can fly in Class E Airspace they will assume you know what you're talking about and you will get the answer "no" because, according to him, airport managers are not allowed to give these permissions out anymore. You must file a flight plan just as everyone else. Please note the other private and smaller airports relatively close by. These do not require any special permissions but it is a good idea to call them and check in with them to see if any traffic is expected on the day of your flight. This just helps you be aware of any manned flights you should be watching out for.

Lucky for me I learned about these transition areas even though this was not on my test. In the Transition area, Class E airspace doesn't start until 700 ft unless you are inside of a Surface Class E Airspace. The SFC Class E is the dashed magenta line in the bottom left of the picture above. Giving credit where credit is due, remotepilot101.com covered this.

Here is an overlay to show you how much area I have to work with inside this transition area. There is plenty of room for me to do my job and complete the task the customer has set for me. Even inside the faded magenta area, I am in Class G until 700 ft. so please know where you are and what you can do without jumping through hoops that you don't need to do. Like I said I am just trying to help others understand so they don't have to turn down jobs. If anyone knows anything I missed or notice anything I am wrong on please let me know and I will change it.

 

[William Gaddy]

Too bad airmap and DJI with their NFZ can't figure this s*** out, too.

 

[Skyward Imaging]

Too bad airmap and DJI with their NFZ can't figure this s*** out, too.

Ain't that the truth.... lol

 

[licensed pilot]

Just trying to help others not turn down jobs here. Understanding the airspaces seems pretty straight forward but it was brought to my attention by an airport manager of all people that some are turning down jobs because of not understanding Class E Transition Areas. I am planning a flight for a client of mine and we are going to be traveling to southern Utah. This particular job lands right on the boundaries of Class E Airspace. This is called the Class E Transition Area. It's anywhere inside the faded magenta area on your sectional map. Notice the pin almost center of the map.

This is the area I am talking about. Today while acquainting myself with the airport manager down there he told me that 3 people had called him asking for "Permission" to fly inside Class E Airspace at those coordinates. Just a friendly reminder, if you ask them if you can fly in Class E Airspace they will assume you know what you're talking about and you will get the answer "no" because, according to him, airport managers are not allowed to give these permissions out anymore. You must file a flight plan just as everyone else. Please note the other private and smaller airports relatively close by. These do not require any special permissions but it is a good idea to call them and check in with them to see if any traffic is expected on the day of your flight. This just helps you be aware of any manned flights you should be watching out for.

Lucky for me I learned about these transition areas even though this was not on my test. In the Transition area, Class E airspace doesn't start until 700 ft unless you are inside of a Surface Class E Airspace. The SFC Class E is the dashed magenta line in the bottom left of the picture above. Giving credit where credit is due, remotepilot101.com covered this.

Here is an overlay to show you how much area I have to work with inside this transition area. There is plenty of room for me to do my job and complete the task the customer has set for me. Even inside the faded magenta area, I am in Class G until 700 ft. so please know where you are and what you can do without jumping through hoops that you don't need to do. Like I said I am just trying to help others understand so they don't have to turn down jobs. If anyone knows anything I missed or notice anything I am wrong on please let me know and I will change it.

Thank you. never thought about how large the transition area is.

 

[Skyward Imaging]

Thank you. never thought about how large the transition area is.

And a lot of people forget, unless you are in a surface class e you're in class g up till 700' AGL and you can still fly up to your 400' unless the map specifies otherwise.

 

[William Gaddy]

And a lot of people forget, unless you are in a surface class e you're in class g up till 700' AGL and you can still fly up to your 400' unless the map specifies otherwise.

I've heard about a lot of people submitting airspace waiver requests and getting summarily rejected -- not because there was anything wrong with their request, per se, but because they were unknowingly asking for permission to fly in Class Golf when they ALREADY HAD FULL PERMISSION to do so under CFR 14 Part 107... just because they couldn't read and properly interpret a chart.

 

[licensed pilot]

And a lot of people forget, unless you are in a surface class e you're in class g up till 700' AGL and you can still fly up to your 400' unless the map specifies otherwise.

Yes, knew that, even manned ac pilots don't quite understand the finer points of airspace classes. They just fire up their Cessna, like they do every weekend and soar the same little chunk of wild blue yonder .

 

[Skyward Imaging]

I've heard about a lot of people submitting airspace waiver requests and getting summarily rejected -- not because there was anything wrong with their request, per se, but because they were unknowingly asking for permission to fly in Class Golf when they ALREADY HAD FULL PERMISSION to do so under CFR 14 Part 107... just because they couldn't read and properly interpret a chart.

What's funny is the FAA knows who don't know how to read a sectional chart by their list of rejected airspace authorizations. Lol

 

[licensed pilot]

Which makes the rest of us look stupid to the feds.

 

[William Gaddy]

Which makes the rest of us look stupid to the feds.

Someone should create "an app for that" so the FAA doesn't take 3 years and $800M to do so in-house... I mean s***, read a shape file, input a coordinate (what class of airspace am I in?) this isn't rocket science. A little bit of geometry, a little bit of MongoDB, some node.js... astonishing. The data IS ALL THERE at FAA's NASR, just waiting. WTF.

 

[kennedye]

Well, ForeFlight can help with some of this I believe, but it ain't exactly cheap. (Though if you're boring holes in the sky in a Cessna, I suppose the subscription fee is a pretty minor chunk of your flying budget...)

 

[William Gaddy]

Well, ForeFlight can help with some of this I believe, but it ain't exactly cheap. (Though if you're boring holes in the sky in a Cessna, I suppose the subscription fee is a pretty minor chunk of your flying budget...)

Foreflight is not that expensive in the grand scheme of things, but *rant alert* : I'm seriously considering just writing it myself. S***. I don't need flight planning, IFR routes and all that rot, just given an altitude and a GPS/coord click on Google maps, what airspace is this? G, E,C,B? Charlie from surface to 15000? Bravo from 700 to 1000 and Air Charlie from 400 to 699? The first person that says airspace.io loses at least one of their testicles -- they don't have any accounting of ALTITUDE in their API... Class G in Bronx quickly becomes class B when you cross 700 ft and 1500ft agl. *angry rant off*

 

[licensed pilot]

Apps are good and convenient, as reference tools. I am sure a good cheap app w/ William's wish features will be coming.
However, -rant alert- remote pilots need to LEARN HOW to read sectionals, if they want to be worthy of the label "pilot." If you can't read an aeronautical chart you may play with toy drones, but you ain't no pilot and certainly no Part 107 pilot.I see "pilots" asking embarrassingly easy questions(but at least they ask) in this and other forums they should already know the answer to, if the want to fly in the national airspace and passed the 107 test. I am a licensed manned ac pilot and I still spend hours going over sectionals,legend, and other references to ensure compliance and not to look stupid when I apply for a COA. 107 pilots must learn to read sectionals. Anyone who does not want to learn how to read sectionals should stick to flying their toy at the city park, preferably no higher than 20 feet -rant end-

 

[William Gaddy]

Apps are good and convenient, as reference tools. I am sure a good cheap app w/ William's wish features will be coming.
However, -rant alert- remote pilots need to LEARN HOW to read sectionals, if they want to be worthy of the label "pilot." If you can't read an aeronautical chart you may play with toy drones, but you ain't no pilot and certainly no Part 107 pilot.I see "pilots" asking embarrassingly easy questions(but at least they ask) in this and other forums they should already know the answer to, if the want to fly in the national airspace and passed the 107 test. I am a licensed manned ac pilot and I still spend hours going over sectionals,legend, and other references to ensure compliance and not to look stupid when I apply for a COA. 107 pilots must learn to read sectionals. Anyone who does not want to learn how to read sectionals should stick to flying their toy at the city park, preferably no higher than 20 feet -rant end-

We're in violent agreement on this point. I'm not advocating for "dumbing down" pilots to just use an app as an excuse to remove from them the responsibility and skills to read a sectional or TAC. All well and good, but let's say I am a stock photo/video provider and I want to doublecheck the geotag and time metadata in the photos to ensure that the photos were taken legally? (Just but one example) How else would I do that? I could have an "army of pilots" cross checking geotags and historical sectionals, but as you can imagine that solution doesn't scale very well.

 

[Skyward Imaging]

We're in violent agreement on this point. I'm not advocating for "dumbing down" pilots to just use an app as an excuse to remove from them the responsibility and skills to read a sectional or TAC. All well and good, but let's say I am a stock photo/video provider and I want to doublecheck the geotag and time metadata in the photos to ensure that the photos were taken legally? (Just but one example) How else would I do that? I could have an "army of pilots" cross checking geotags and historical sectionals, but as you can imagine that solution doesn't scale very well.

I can see your point but I don't think companies are going to go as far as checking geo tags and historical data of a photo. Even if they did there are already apps out there that do this and can show you everything you need to know. Heck, in Mac OS X it's built in. Including a map function to pinpoint the exact location the picture was taken. Here is an excerpt from osxdaily.com showing you how easy it is.

View the Exact Location a Photo was Taken on a Map with Preview & Maps in Mac OS X
You’ll need OS X Yosemite 10.10.x or newer to have this mapping feature in Preview app:

1. Open a geotagged image into the Preview application
2. Pull down the “Tools” menu and choose “Show Inspector”
3. Click the (i) tab, then choose the “GPS” tab*
4. Wait a moment for the map to load with the picture location
5. Click on “Show in Maps” to open the photos exact location within the Maps app and get a better view

Here’s where you’ll find the Inspector option:

Choosing the info tab and GPS section, you’ll see the map shown in the Inspector panel, but you can get a much larger view by choosing “Show in Maps”:

This will then launch into the Maps application where you can navigate the map as usual:

* If you do not see a “GPS” tab then the image almost certainly does not include location data, either because it was never embedded to begin with, or because it was removed manually like this.

 

[William Gaddy]

I can see your point but I don't think companies are going to go as far as checking geo tags and historical data of a photo. Even if they did there are already apps out there that do this and can show you everything you need to know. Heck, in Mac OS X it's built in. Including a map function to pinpoint the exact location the picture was taken. Here is an excerpt from osxdaily.com showing you how easy it is.

View the Exact Location a Photo was Taken on a Map with Preview & Maps in Mac OS X
You’ll need OS X Yosemite 10.10.x or newer to have this mapping feature in Preview app:

1. Open a geotagged image into the Preview application
2. Pull down the “Tools” menu and choose “Show Inspector”
3. Click the (i) tab, then choose the “GPS” tab*
4. Wait a moment for the map to load with the picture location
5. Click on “Show in Maps” to open the photos exact location within the Maps app and get a better view

Here’s where you’ll find the Inspector option:

Choosing the info tab and GPS section, you’ll see the map shown in the Inspector panel, but you can get a much larger view by choosing “Show in Maps”:

This will then launch into the Maps application where you can navigate the map as usual:

* If you do not see a “GPS” tab then the image almost certainly does not include location data, either because it was never embedded to begin with, or because it was removed manually like this.

I'm actually advising a company who is doing exactly that, matching geotags and flight logs to historical sectionals, but it's a major PITA currently. My thinking is simply along the lines of "there has to be a better way".

 

[William Gaddy]

Location is but one (important, but singular) datapoint. Say you're flying 700ft AGL -- illegal, or not? Well depends if you're flying in proximity to a tall structure, say a TV tower, for example to inspect it. But what if the airspace is Class B from 500 feet to 10,000? You can get obstacle files, shape files for all the airspace, all for free from FAA NASR. I'm just surprised no one has put all this together yet, that's my main point. All this technology and data and nowhere to go... but a printed chart (for now).

 

[William Gaddy]

Another example: SkyVector is reading the geometric coordinates from METARs and PIREPs and superimposing them upon PDF CHARTS! All this intelligence and technology, but for airspace classification by altitude and location? Nope. We're still pasting polygons on top of PDF's, a distinctly 20th century technology... If the FAA cracked this nut, by the way, a Part 107 airspace authorization could be largely automatic and might take 5 minutes instead of the current 90 days.