Airspace, land status, state law and flight conditions for Cochise County, the Tucson metro and the Arizona border band — including the two widely repeated Arizona drone rules that are not actually law.
$24All three editions. One file each, no subscription, no account.
Checkout is not open yet. The free sample below is the real thing — four complete cards, not a teaser — and it is genuinely useful on its own.
Why this exists
There are four independent layers of restriction over this part of Arizona, each administered by a different body, and clearing one tells you nothing about the others. Airspace class. Restricted areas. National Security UAS Flight Restrictions. And the question of who owns the ground you are standing on to launch.
A LAANC authorization clears exactly one of those four. That is the single most expensive misunderstanding in this county, and there is an active Army installation and an active Air Force base inside the coverage area of this guide.
The other reason: a large number of pages describing “Arizona drone laws” report a 500-foot buffer around critical facilities and a drone offence under the disorderly conduct statute. Both were in the introduced version of the 2016 bill and were removed before it was enacted. They are not law. The sites repeating them have read a bill summary rather than the statute.
Three editions, same content
Letter
16 pages, 8.5 × 11 in — the reference edition
Kneeboard
18 pages, 5.5 × 8.5 in — fits a standard US half-page pouch
Mobile
24 pages, 4.5 × 8 in — tappable links instead of QR codes
The kneeboard edition is half-letter, 5.5 × 8.5 in — not metric A5. That eight millimetres decides whether a standard US laminating pouch, binder and kneeboard clip actually fit. The mobile edition replaces QR codes with tappable links, because you cannot scan a QR code with the phone displaying it.
Where no authorization is needed, and why visual line of sight — not acreage — is the real constraint on a large parcel.
Sierra Vista and Fort Huachuca
Class D to 7,200 ft MSL within 4.7 miles, the Class E extensions, and R-2303 at roughly 946 square miles.
The Tucson metro
One Class C shared between TUS and Davis-Monthan, and why "it is only the shelf" is not a flight plan.
Where you cannot fly at all
The NPS units and designated Wilderness — including why launching outside the boundary does not work.
Who owns the ground you are standing on
State Trust Land permits and the commercial trap, Coronado NF after the EXPLORE Act, overflight versus trespass, tribal land.
The border band
HB 2733 and the fifteen-mile zone where officers hold immunity to disable an aircraft on reasonable suspicion.
What Arizona law adds — and what it does not
A.R.S. 13-3729 subsections (A) and (C), and the two rules removed from the 2016 bill that half the internet still reports as law.
GPS and RF near the Proving Ground
Open-air GPS testing, what degradation actually looks like, and why it corrupts mapping data silently.
Flying conditions in Southern Arizona
Density altitude by town, monsoon outflow, caliche glare, dust and open range.
Quick reference by location
Fourteen rows. The whole guide compressed onto one page.
Sources
Every primary document, linked. Check the guide against them.
Who it is for
·Part 107 operators taking work in Cochise County or the Tucson metro for the first time
·Recreational flyers who want to know where the hard lines actually are
·Photographers planning a trip to the Chiricahuas, Tombstone or the San Pedro
·Anyone who has read three "Arizona drone laws" pages and got three different answers
What it is not
It is not legal advice and it authorises nothing. You remain the remote pilot in command under 14 CFR 107.19, and that does not transfer to a PDF.
Airspace changes, statutes change, and National Park Service compendiums change with a new superintendent. Every card names its source so you can check whether it still holds — and the edition date is printed on every page, which is more than most references manage.
Would you rather we just flew it?
We are Part 107 certified, insured, and based in the Sulphur Springs Valley — no travel surcharge in the valley, and no LAANC delay across most of the county. Rates are published rather than quote-only.