Saturday evening was the date of the San Antonio Water Lantern Festival over at Elmendorf Lake Park, near the Our Lady of the Lake University (OLLU). We were invited to come fly our drones to help capture the spirit of the event.
We’ve edited these 2 videos, so far, and took lots of photos during the event. Enjoy. By the way, check out our comments at the bottom of this post. There was an illegal drone pilot flying during the event.
Here’s the first event video…
Here’s a short time-lapse sunset video from the event…
This location was a bit more challenging because it was within the 5 mile radius of the restricted flight area for Kelly Field / Lackland AFB and thus required advance flight authorization. You cannot legally fly a drone inside this area without first obtaining an airspace waiver from the FAA, approved by the AFB. This isn’t an area where you can simply file an automated request via the LAANC system to get approval within 60 seconds. Fortunately for the organizers, Yellow Rose Drones already holds a long term wide area airspace waiver for operating within this region and has an established working relationship with the base to expedite such requests.
There was another drone pilot flying, what appeared to be a DJI Mavic Mini or Mini 2 drone, very low over the lake during the event. That pilot did NOT have authorization to fly (from the organizers nor the AFB) and obviously did NOT have the FAA required 3 mile visibility anti-collision lights affixed to their drone. We won’t get into the legalities over the argument regarding drones that weigh under / over 250 grams, but sufficient to say, our video proved that this unknown pilot was flying in violation of multiple FAA regulations, something that you won’t have to worry about if you retain Yellow Rose Drones for your next event.