Airspace Review

The FAA is charged with ensuring the safe use of a public resource: the airspace above all our heads. The primary way they do their job is by making sure that airplanes work as they were designed and have adequate operational limits, ensuring that pilots and other airspace professionals (like controllers) have been adequately trained and receive recurrent training, and by separating airspace users in operation by adequate distances. It is the latter which will have the most bearing on your application.

It's helpful to have an aviation map for the next steps. The application will ask for information relating to the airspace over your launch site, and the map will help you provide it in a form the FAA understands. Go to a general aviation airport and look for the place where pilots pay for fuel or rent airplanes. Ask the folks there for a "sectional" map. A total of 26 sectionals cover the continental US. Unless you are near a map boundary, the sectional should be the one most used by pilots in your area. It costs about $7, and it's fun to look at and decipher. You can also get sectional maps on the Internet to use in real time