Flying above 400ft in mountainous terrain legally?

fans6c4002e6

I live in the rocky mounatins and was wondering about legal max altitude in a region like this.

FAA guidelines state 400ft is the max flying altitude above ground as far as i've read. What if I take off and fly to 400ft but there is a cliff/mounatin right next to me where the ground is 1000ft. Does this mean I can technically fly at an altitude of 1400ft since it will 400ft above the cliff? (assuming I adjust my max altitude settings accordingly) Or would I have to climb the cliff and then rise to 400ft to be flying legally. I've definitely brought it up to like 600ft before in order to get a shot of a bridge and even then I was just barely clearing the trees by like 50-100ft because I was standing in the valley

Again this is just asking about legality, not whether the mavic can handle it or if the software would let me.

DroneFlying

Does this mean I can technically fly at an altitude of 1400ft since it will 400ft above the cliff?

Yes. The 400' maximum is 400 feet above the ground level below the drone (not necessarily above the pilot), so you don't need to climb the mountain yourself for the flight to conform to FAA's guidelines.

Wellsi

I have seen a video explaining that the FAA regs do allow for increased altitude as long as you stay below 400 feet above your obstacle, be it a hill or tall building. As ever, that comes with the caveat of internet-based 'facts'

Mavic measures altitude from taking off point but there are situations where this doesn't apply; flying off a cliff or in a valley.... It's all about common sense...
This is the guy's video below:

Ian

https://www.youtube.com/IaninLondon

mike6545

Thanks for the answers guys! This was my suspicion. Common sense to me dictated the same thing since if I fly at 400ft next to a mountain that is 700ft then obviously no actual aircraft would fly anywhere close to that 700ft altitude because it would risk hitting the mountain or surrounding mountains that are even taller. This usually isn't a problem for me but there have been a few instances where 400ft was too low because of surrounding topography.