FPV pilot Parker Sheppard flew a 5-inch freestyle quad around the Kinzua Bridge in McKean County, Pennsylvania, and published the footage to YouTube on October 1, 2026. The 13,500-subscriber channel’s video had 8,260 views two days later. Sheppard dove from cloud level onto the Skywalk, flew under the surviving span and crossed the valley where the 2003 tornado left 11 of the viaduct’s towers lying in the creek bed.

Kinzua Bridge is a state park. Sheppard says so on camera, adds that drones are not allowed there, and says the state cleared his flight anyway. He does not say which office cleared it.

Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources publishes exactly six state parks where drones may fly, each at one designated site inside the park. Kinzua Bridge State Park is not on the list.

Sheppard Says Pennsylvania Cleared A Flight DCNR Policy Does Not Allow

Sheppard told viewers “Pennsylvania gave me special permission to come here and fly FPV,” a flight the Bureau of State Parks’ drone policy rules out: the bureau permits drones only at designated sites in Beltzville, Benjamin Rush, Hillman, Lackawanna, Prompton and Tuscarora, and restricts them at every other state park.

DCNR’s drone page describes no permit route for the other parks. It tells pilots to contact the park office of the six flying sites and stops there. Sheppard’s video and its description name no agency, no permit and no date of approval, so what Pennsylvania granted, and who at the state granted it, rests on his word alone. DroneXL covered the gap between what state parks allow and what pilots assume in You Want to Fly a Drone in Your State Park? You Need This! in March 2023, and most of those parks ban launches from inside their boundaries. Pennsylvania’s version is one of the strictest, with six parks open and the rest closed.

The timing of the shoot narrows the window. The Skywalk has been closed for a multi-year steel rehabilitation since late 2024 and reopened for foliage season on September 5, 2026, with contractors back on the structure November 1. Sheppard flew from the Skywalk deck, so unless his permission also covered a closed structure, the flight landed inside that eight-week opening, the busiest the park gets all year.

A Cut Antenna And An Unseen Wire Bracket The Bridge Flight

Earlier the same trip, Sheppard launched the DeepSpace SEEKER5 with an antenna cable folded into a prop, heard it clipping, took off anyway and flew into a branch. The prop severed the cable. The quad’s DJI O4 Air Unit carries two antennas, and he flew on with one.

He said the lesson out loud: spend more time in prep before flying. The O4 series shipped in January 2025 with that dual-antenna layout. At the bridge, under a cloud deck he called questionable, he planned a single pass and clipped past a wire he had not seen, then packed up ahead of the storm. The trip was filmed entirely on a sponsored GoPro MISSION 1 PRO with the ILS lens mount, Sheppard filming with two broken wrists while pro mountain biker Rémy Métailler and Quin Gable rode.

That makes it the second GoPro-equipped FPV flight this year that DroneXL has written up from a place that bans drones. In August, GoPro flew 8K over Niagara Falls and left the permit out of the description. Sheppard at least said his on camera.

DroneXL’s Take

Sheppard did the hard part right. He wanted a spot where drones are banned, and instead of flying it anyway and hoping, he asked the state. That is the opposite of “don’t be that guy,” and I’d rather see ten more videos like this than one more unpermitted stadium dive. The flaw is in what he left out. “Pennsylvania gave me special permission” is a sentence the next pilot at Kinzua will repeat to a ranger with nothing behind it, and the DCNR page that pilot will be shown offers six parks and no permit process. One line naming the office and the agreement would have turned his flight into a map for everyone else. He found a door into a park the state says is closed. Tell us which one, Parker.

Sources: Parker Sheppard on YouTube, Pennsylvania DCNR Bureau of State Parks, Kinzua Bridge State Park history, exploreJeffersonPA.

DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read our editorial standards.