Formation Flying Over A Congested Area?

[denverpilot]

The yellow on a sectional denotes areas that might be visible at night, not "congested" areas. The FAA won't tell you what areas are congested, so be careful out there.

Case law will tell you. They've called more than one human being "congested" before, and the ALJ agreed they could define it however they liked, because it's not defined -- and the ALJs and NTSB usually defer to FAA whenever FAA doesn't define something in writing.

In other words, if the Judge has nothing to reference, whatever the FAA says it means to the Court, is what it means for the case.

IANAL but that's how multiple cases I've read the transcripts of look like to me, anyway. Very formal. ALJs don't seem to like making up law that doesn't exist by giving opinions, as much as other Judges in different specialties seem to.