Flying at a Working Airport: The Regulations Behind Our WSCC Autocross Coverage
May 24, 2026 | St. Andrews Airport (CYAV), St. Andrews, MB
Flying over a drift event at a motorsport park is one thing. Flying at a working airport, with a control tower, NAV CANADA airspace and Transport Canada rules stacked on top of each other, is something else.
On May 24, DIRXECP was at St. Andrews Airport to cover the WSCC Autocross. The footage tells one story. What happened before we showed up tells another.
Why this shoot was different
CYAV isn't a closed field. It's a certified airport with a control tower, real traffic and controlled airspace around it, and it doesn't forgive anyone who treats it casually.
For a lot of drone operators, a job like this is off the table. For us it meant doing the homework early, and that homework touched three different groups before a single flight.
The approvals
NAV CANADA. Controlled airspace means an RPAS flight authorization from NAV CANADA, requested through NAV Drone, with the times, area and altitudes we planned to use. Flying there also requires a Transport Canada Advanced RPAS certificate, which we hold.
Airport management. Transport Canada's rules expect you to follow the procedures set by an airport's operator when you fly near it. We coordinated directly with CYAV management so the operation was sanctioned at the facility level. Flying at someone's airport without their knowledge isn't just a regulatory problem. It's a professional one.
Transport Canada. Because the autocross was an advertised event with spectators, it ran under our Canada-wide SFOC for advertised events. That meant a flight notification to Transport Canada ahead of time, the organizer's permission on file, a site survey, an event-specific safety plan, and a visual observer for every flight.
Each layer exists for a reason. Together they protect other airspace users, the drivers, and the public. We take that seriously.
The crew
Justin Savage, Visual Observer, keeping eyes on the aircraft and the surrounding airspace for every flight
Devin Savage, Ground Crew, running the operational perimeter and coordinating with event and airport staff
At an airport, a trained, switched-on crew isn't optional. It's part of the safety system.
The gear
We flew the RVS Mopax on DJI O4 Pro. A low-latency feed matters when situational awareness is everything: you need to know exactly where the aircraft is and what it's seeing, in real time.
Autocross is fast, tight and unpredictable. The Mopax handles it.
What coordinated operations look like
There's a version of this shoot where someone shows up, launches without telling anyone, and hopes nobody notices. That version puts everyone at risk: the event, the drivers, other aircraft, and the wider drone community.
The version we ran had weeks of coordination, documented approvals, a written safety plan, and a crew that executed cleanly on the day. That's increasingly what event organizers and venues expect, and they should.
Planning an event near an airport?
If you're running an event at or near a controlled aerodrome and need aerial coverage, the question isn't whether it can be done. It's whether your operator has done the work to do it right. Get in touch and we'll walk you through the process.
Follow @dirxecp for footage from the WSCC Autocross.
DIRXECP is a Winnipeg-based commercial video production company. Our drone operations run under a Transport Canada Advanced RPAS certificate and a Canada-wide SFOC, coordinated with every authority the job requires.
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