From Wiki. From this I understand a homeowner can legally shoot down a drone if it hovers 500 feet or lower above your property.
In the
United States, the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has the sole authority to control all public airspace, exclusively determining the rules and requirements for its use. Public air space is classified as the 'navigable' airspace above 500 feet.[SUP]
[1]
[/SUP]
Specifically, the Federal Aviation Act provides that: "The
United States Government has exclusive sovereignty of airspace of the United States."[SUP]
[2][/SUP] The act defines navigable airspace as "airspace above the minimum altitudes of flight…including airspace needed to ensure the safety in the takeoff and landing of aircraft."[SUP]
[3][/SUP]
Property owners may waive (or purchasers may be
required to waive) any putative notion of "air rights" near an airport, for convenience in future
real estate transactions, and to avoid
lawsuits from future owners nuisance claims against low flying aircraft. This is called a navigation
easement.
From an analysis by the
Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association of a lawsuit by a property owner against a nearby small airport:
The landowner's claim raises some fundamental legal principles about the ownership of land and the airspace above the land. These principles have been developing over time. In early
common law, when there was little practical use of the upper air over a person's land, the law considered that a
landowner owned all of the airspace above their land. That doctrine quickly became obsolete when the airplane came on the scene, along with the realization that each property owner whose land was overflown could demand that aircraft keep out of the landowner's airspace, or exact a price for the use of the airspace. The law, drawing heavily on the
law of the sea, then declared that the upper reaches of the airspace were free for the navigation of aircraft. In the case of
United States v. Causby,[SUP]
[4][/SUP] the
U.S. Supreme Court declared the navigable airspace to be "a public highway" and within the
public domain. At the same time, the law, and the Supreme Court, recognized that a landowner had property rights in the lower reaches of the airspace above their property. The law, in balancing the
public interest in using the airspace for
air navigation against the landowner's rights, declared that a landowner controls use of the airspace above their property in connection with their uninterrupted use and enjoyment of the underlying land. In other words, a person's real property ownership includes a reasonable amount of the private airspace above the property in order to prevent nuisance. A landowner may make any legitimate use of their property that they want, even if it interferes with aircraft overflying the land."[SUP]
[5]
[/SUP]
