Airspace on the map
What the read-only airspace and TFR overlay on the mission map shows, where the data comes from, and what BeaconUAV does not do with it.
Every mission map draws published airspace over the base map so you can see what you are flying in before you plan a route. The overlay is informational only — verify with official sources before flight.
BeaconUAV does not file, submit, or provide LAANC authorization. Nothing on the map approves, clears, or validates a flight.
What you see
| Layer | What it shows | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Class airspace | Class A, B, C, D and E areas as published by the FAA, with their vertical limits | On |
| Special use airspace | Restricted, warning, MOA and other special-use areas, including the hours and controlling agency where the FAA publishes them | On |
| Prohibited areas | Areas where flight is prohibited outright — no part-time window to check | Off |
| LAANC altitude grid | The maximum altitude LAANC could authorize at each grid cell around an airport, exactly as published | Off |
| National security UAS restrictions | Time-bound restrictions on flying unmanned aircraft, published by the FAA and DoD | Off |
| Recognized identification areas | FRIAs — fixed sites where recreational flyers may operate without remote ID | Off |
| Active TFRs | The FAA's list of active Temporary Flight Restrictions: NOTAM id, category, owning facility, state and the FAA's own description | Always |
Vertical limits are assembled from the FAA's own published value, unit and
reference — for example Surface – 10000 ft MSL or FL600. We do not invent
or convert magnitudes: a ceiling is the kind of number where a units mistake
matters more than a tidier display, and where the dataset publishes no limit,
we show none rather than guessing one.
Click any area on the map for its name, limits, hours (where published) and the source of the data.
Where the data comes from
- Airspace polygons come from the FAA's Aeronautical Information Services open data hub — the same published datasets behind the FAA's own charts. No account, no key, no per-view fee.
- UAS-specific layers (the LAANC grid, national security restrictions and FRIAs) come from the FAA's UAS Data Delivery System open data hub.
- Active TFRs come from the FAA's public temporary flight restriction service, relayed through our backend because the FAA's endpoint does not allow direct browser reads.
The FAA publishes this data "for public use" and describes the airspace datasets as being "for informational and cartographic purposes only" and not an official record of regulatory airspace limits. We show exactly that, and no more.
Not every dataset with a promising name is the dataset you want. One sibling dataset on the same hub named like terminal airspace actually contains enroute center boundaries and reports zero Class B areas over the entire contiguous US — drawing it would show a pilot at a Class B airport a clear map. We query the terminal-airspace dataset specifically and verify its contents.
Temporary flight restrictions
The TFR panel lists active restrictions with the FAA's NOTAM id so you can look the full text up on tfr.faa.gov.
The FAA's TFR feed carries no coordinates — only a state and a prose description. That is why TFRs appear as a list rather than a shape on the map: drawing a polygon we do not have coordinates for would be inventing the one fact you most need. Read the description, then check the official source.
This is the TFR subset, not full NOTAM coverage. The FAA's complete NOTAM service requires credentials we do not hold, so we do not pretend to show every NOTAM. Anything time-critical should be checked on the FAA's own NOTAM and TFR pages before you fly.
Freshness and outages
- Responses are cached and shown with their age ("updated 12 min ago"). Past an hour the age badge turns amber; older data is never presented as if it were current.
- Queries are limited to the area you are looking at and are not repeated on every small pan, which keeps us within the FAA's public request quota.
- If the FAA's service is busy, down, or answers in a form we cannot read, the map says so explicitly — "this map is incomplete — check the official sources before flying" — instead of showing a clear patch of sky. An empty result and a failed load are reported as two different things, always.
What BeaconUAV does not do
- No LAANC or USS integration. We never file, submit, or provide authorization, and no screen should be read as approval to fly.
- No FAA form filing. COAs, waivers and authorizations are requested through the FAA directly.
- No editing airspace as authority. The polygons are read-only. You cannot move, redraw, or dismiss them, and doing so would not change what is actually in effect.
- No coverage claims beyond this page. TFR subset, published airspace layers — that is what we show. Everything else is on the official sources.
If you find a layer that disagrees with the FAA's charts, trust the FAA and tell us — the data is theirs, we only draw it.