There's nothing in the FARs that prohibit it. However, states may not like it, since you're most decidedly stressing the road and not "road legal" according to the FMVSS, and it's probably reckless conduct.

I know that in Alaska and Canada it's not uncommon to land and take off from roads, but people expect it out there.



Very interesting to say the least. I've never seen someone land on a highway in the lower-48 in a non-emergency situation.


ETA: Just finished that video. All I could think about the entire time was some kind of road-debris/FOD making.

I had an instructor in A&P school that would occasionally use the county road in front of his house as a runway. Every now and then a cop would see tire marks on the road in front of his house and write him a ticket. He'd just pay it and keep on using the road.

The first job I had as an A&P was at a place that rebuilt and operated crop dusters. They had a narrow private runway that kin of blended in with the parking lot and driveway. Occasionally they'd use the county road if the crosswords were too high to land on the runway. No idea if that was legal though.

Depends on the county.  

In the county I'm based in we can use county roads to operate (part 137) on as long as we have traffic control on both takeoff and departure ends.

With respect to non-commercial operations the FAA doesn't care where you land as long as you don't create a hazard.

States, counties, cities and towns may have other ideas, i.e. rules and regulations. And even if they do, somebody has to a) notice, b) complain, and c) some authority has to care. I doubt you'd get (b) or (c) where he landed, and AFAIK there is no local authority in Rachel, if there are even any state/county/local ordinances that exist.

Finally, for private property one must have permission of the property owner.

As a helicopter pilot I am frequently faced with this issue. For instance, I was asked at the last minute by my flight school to land a helicopter at a local middle school as part of a "STEM" day. I was happy to do it and could find no town ordinances prohibiting it (there are no relevant state or county ordinances where I live). Nevertheless, I said I wasn't going until I had at least an email authorizing it from someone at the school. Because I sure did not want to wind up like this guy. As luck would have it, and as everyone fully expected, it was no problem at all dropping it into the front yard of the school, and there were no police or fire trucks waiting. It was all a non-event except for the kids who thought that it was pretty cool, which is just what everyone wanted.

But that was a non-commercial operation. For Part 91 commercial operations you need to be operating under an FAA Letter of Authority (LOA). A typical op. like that would be helicopter rides at a fair. You have to have a plan, an approved temporary LZ, and it all needs to be spelled out in the LOA from the FSDO. A somewhat higher level of complexity, but by no means rocket science. Your insurance company might take an interest as well.

As for training, we seem to get away with just property owner permission, no formal LOAs. Thus confined space operations take place at a wide variety of "friends of the helicopter school" properties. We spread that joy around so as not to annoy the neighbors. Got to fly smart!

I don't know.  I mean, if I were to take a plane and taxi it from the airport to the local BBQ joint for lunch, I'd probably get arrested, or at least a few tickets.  No turn signals, no brake lights, no license tags, registration, etc.  How is that any different from landing on a road (exceptions for emergencies, of course)?  And I'm sure there are other exceptions, as samuse pointed out.

Call the cops and ask.  I wouldn't be too happy about some jackass landing on my street, as there are kids and traffic around here.  I like planes, and was professional pilot for 30 years, but there is a proper time and place for everything.

The fun starts around 15 minutes.  Landing at 20 mins, discussion of the legalities around 25 mins.

Apparently this is a popular location for pilots to get lunch.  Wonder how many of them are in bush planes versus a Bonanza?  Seems like a big difference between the two.

And for the record I have watched a lot of Matt Guthmiller's videos and enjoy them.  I have no idea where on the continuum of "legal" this falls.  Of course then there is the "good idea" analysis, which Matt seems to reinforce when he decided scrub the extra photo shoot landing and un-ass the AO.

We never had to have a LOA for any 91 or 135 off-airport landings.  I've probably landed 10000+ times off-airport and never had one.  It wasn't until the end of my career, all of our company off-airport bases actually needed to be registered heliports.  Hospitals and other rooftops usually registered for insurance reasons, but a lot of the ground level rural pads did not.

Like you said, it falls more on the state, municipality, etc than the FAA.  In Missouri, there was nothing, just as long as you hand the land owner's permission, and there were's local ordinances against it, good to go.  Same in IL, except if you landed somewhere more then 25 times a year (or some other arbitrary number) then it had to be a registered heliport with the state (and of course that came with a registration fee, just like on your aircraft and pilot certificate.)  In either though, if you had neighbors or others bi!tch, then you better have your ducks in a row (but of course, they had to prove you were PIC in the first place.)

On OP's original question, with the feds, it always goes back to 91.13.......careless and reckless.  That's the catch all and they'll always hang you on it if they need to.  But it's not like they enjoy giving those LOAs out--causes work and liability.  The only time I ever saw LOA's in our state were for some unique stuff like flying under bridges, civilian performers in airshows, etc.  I knew a guy that legally flew through the Gateway Arch multiple times and even landed on the top of it twice--those definitely had LOA's.  That's the kind of stuff that you get an LOA for around here, not landing off airport in a parking lot.  Out in a rural area, it's a lot like a seaplane landing.....go for it as long as it's safe.

EDIT:  Here's our state law on it:  Flight in aircraft over the lands and waters of this state is lawful, unless at such a low altitude as to interfere with the then existing use to which the land or water, or the space over the land or water, is put by the owner, or unless so conducted as to be imminently dangerous to persons or property lawfully on the land or water beneath. The landing of an aircraft on the lands or waters of another, without his consent, is unlawful, except in the case of a forced landing.

Or you could just ride around like Truman Sparks...

The owner of a company I used to work for landed his MU-2 in a road in Montana when he visited his ranch.  It was a non issue from what I understood.

That's exactly what I meant, but you said it better. LOAs for fair rides, for landing Santa in a stadium, that sort of thing. Not for training or other random operations that are not repetitive, or in built-up, congested areas that are not otherwise heliports.

I do know that it used to be legal for crop dusters to use certain roads with some restrictions in Arkansas.

Don't know what the rules are now but it was not that unusual back in the day but the areas were fairly lightly populated and not many people would see it happen.

I’ve landed on a road probably 50 times during my 1200 or so my unpaved landings.

Of course they were all in Alaska.

Many years ago I was working at a small town FBO and the boss asked me to take one of his rental planes and fly some guy to a dirt crop dusting strip so he could work on one of their loaders that was stranded there. Got there and the landing strip was grown up with Johnson grass that was probably five feet tall. I wasn't about to land in that so I landed on the gravel road next to it. It was way out in the middle of nowhere and not a big deal and no cars anywhere nearby.

I was based at a good sized airport for many years.  Parallel runways.  One day there was a really incredible cross wind nearly 90 degrees off the runways......the guy in the hangar next to us was coming back in his Mooney.  He asked the tower if he could land on the taxiway that connected those runways  (which was straight into the wind).  There was a long pause then they issued him the same clearance we got in the helicopter......."landing at your own risk, area not controlled by the tower".

They used to say "proceed as requested". More than a few times I have landed tail-wheel airplanes on taxiways and grass surfaces that were safer in strong winds than on the runways.

There was some serious stunt-flying going on in that scene.

Perfectly legal in my AO.  Normal to land on a certain NV highway for milkshakes and fuel.  Landing on ridge tops, roads, gravel bars, etc.

I watch a guy on youtube, Jonas Marcinko. He lands on the road all the time and gases up at car gas stations. Looks like he has fun. Says it’s legal in most places.

Yeah he has a great channel.