I have just added this to the map of places to fly your drone at Drone Scene:
Land owner permission obtained.
I was fortunate enough to fly Fort Nelson as we wanted to do some mapping survey of an interesting structure, I contacted the Royal Armouries who put me in touch with Fort Nelson. They were very accomodating in allow me to fly and survey the Fort as well as capture some other images. The Fort is within Fleetlands FRZ and as I was flying at 0800 on a Sunday morning they gave me permission as they do not fly at weekends. Fort Nelson asked for some of the images for social media purposes which I was more than happy to give to them
The originator declared that this location was inside a flight restriction zone at the time of being flown. Permission to fly was obtained from Fleetlands . It remains the responsibility of any pilot to check for any changes before flying at the same location.
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Hi Phil,
I’m basically lazy so could you give me contact details for Fleetlands please? I intend to fly Fort Southwick on a weekend when I assume Fleetlands will be relatively inactive. Annoyingly most of the Palmerston follies are on the edge of the zone
To be honest it took me ages to get hold of the number, it wasn’t until I called Solent Airfield about flying in their FRZ that they gave me their number. The control room number is 02392 544483. They only fly week days but a courtesy call never goes a miss. When I called and told him I was flying at 0800 on a Sunday he immediately said it was not a problem and crack on. However, Fort Southwick is outside Fleetlands FRZ, I would be more concerned with Portsdown Technology Park. I wrote a brief letter to DSTL Portsdown West when I flew Fort Nelson to inform them I was flying the fort and I would not fly anywhere near them nor the camera would point in their direction. I got a really nice email in return thanking me. It might be worth doing the same with PTP just as a polite notification you are going to fly there. When do you intend on flying Fort Southwick? Did you get permission or flying from public land? Phil
I was intending to fly from public land although the caretaker is a friend of a friend. I was there for a private tour when Harry Pound’s military vehicles were up top on the parade ground. We took the narrow gauge train for a spin around the perimeter and then went down the levels of the underground comms centre. When the lights went off the only time I have ever been in such complete darkness was once before at the bottom of a coal mine.
As for when - a weekend subject to weather and light 
Thanks for the contact details, very useful!
I would love to fly there, if you don’t mind some company please give me a shout. My father worked in the ComCen in there during the Falklands War. Would be good to have a look around, it is a shame some of these historic sites are now behind closed doors.
Take a look on Google Earth. There is a submarine conning tower rising out of the ground close to the tunnel of the wee railway. Apparently the above ground comms centre was built when the military realised that the Soviets had two missiles targetted on Fort Southwick that would vapourise all six levels of the wartime underground complex.
As everything had to be handcarried down spiral staircases for the underground centre it was decided to build above ground and sheath the building in copper mesh o act as a faraday cage.
Harry Pounds’ agent found the missiles in Russia that had been aimed at Portsmouth and negotiated to buy them, so the story goes. They were to be used as gate guards but were excessively radioactive. Probably a myth …
I live in Portchester so know it quite well, they also have a tank as a gate guardian.
I’ve flown here too @Shambleclown 
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Love the tunnel underneath the Fort to the Ammunition rooms.
I stop here after doing a flight in Portsmouth. I did a flight around Nelson’s Monument. It’s 100m from Fort Nelson. It’s about 2.05 Nautical miles, from EGVF FLEETLANDS helicopter aerodrome.
So it is just on the edge of the Flight Restriction Zone.
DIJ warning system went off alerting me that I was 6.7km from LEE-ON-SOLENT airport.
And It will not take any responsibility if I crash my drone into the monument.
I did fly up to 3m from the monument.
