So, I’ve been reading through a few threads along with diving deeply into the CAA and NATS websites, and I want to make sure that I’ve got the law correct before risking flying in my local area (close-ish to Heathrow).
From my understanding of the laws, am I correct in thinking that my drone (a Honivon Drone B6, only 100g) is safe to be flown (still keeping in line with the basic rules to keep safe, like 50ft distance, keeping VLOS at very low altitudes (<24ft)) in areas even if there is a “No drones” warning sign put up by Heathrow?
I only ask as there’s a fairly large-ish field/playing grounds not too far from my house. There are fairly large and clear “No drones” signs on the entrances to the fields, but I’d love to be able to go somewhere more open than my garden to acclimatise to more open flying without having to drive 30mins away. I appreciate I might get a concerned (or busy-body) citizen stating the “No drones” sign, but I’d like to know if as far as others are aware, I am legally allowed to fly from my interpretation of the laws.
Apologies if my wording is a bit blabbering, and thank you in advance for any and all advice given!
If the field is within the FRZ / NFZ of Heathrow your likely to get into a spot of bother from both public and police regardless of your drone’s size / weight.
If it has loads of signs too that say no drones that too will also attract some form of negative response from people.
A drone is a drone to most people regardless of its size.
I been flying for years and I am not one to want to poke the bear to find out - so a location like what you have just described would be a bit of a no go for me.
Just be sure to be out of the red zones around Heathrow on the drone scene map and you will be fine.
Thank you, @LE60LAD. I’m grateful for your input, as I couldn’t tell if there was a grey area or not, and at the end of the day, I’d always rather play it safer than not, and definitely not become one of “those” drone operators, regardless of it’s category!
I will definitely stick to both NATS’ UAS Restrictions Map and Drone Scene’s map and locations that have been marked outside of the NFZ/FRZs.
it is a little bit of a grey area - but when it comes to major airports and with all the issues around that little ( no so little ) incident at Gatwick you can see how things can escalate.
Quite often the No Drone signs have little to no legal standing other than to say you cant take off from this land but you could do next to it and fly over it. But I would also feel that if there is a lot of them at a location there is bound to be some really good reason behind them too so worth looking into it a bit more.
As for “toy” drones they generally dont have things like GPS / or a way to hover in a fixed location or any of the other safety features that other drones from the major manufactures have so there could be even more risk of flying one of these too close to a resticted area.
Hopefully there is some park land or forest ( one of the first places I ever flew my drone was in a forest - keeps you focused on what your doing haha ) for you to learn in and get more confidence. Every day will be a school day for sure.
@Makalla Pan
I flew up at Ditton Park near Heathrow last year about 700 metres I was from their FRZ I’ll be honest I found it quite frightening - I could see planes flying over the top of my drone they was very low ‘ for me ‘ it kinda put me off ( but that’s just me )
Thank you for expanding on all of that! I used to be in the ATC and on one flight, my NCO and I accidentally got pushed into restricted air space - was one of the most terrifying moments of my brief flying “career”!
The very last thing I want is the police or LATCC/NATS knocking on my door!
@Kirky
It’s a veeeeery small world… I used to live literally just round the corner from Ditton Park; Penn Road in Datchet! Whenever LHR 27L or 27R were being used for takeoffs, they always came right over my old house!! I’m so glad that the local council enforced that newer builds had to be triple glazed!
I can imagine!! I grew up in Cowley, Uxbridge until the end of Concorde flying, and it was incredible how much quieter things got once they stopped! I can’t deny that I still miss the sound, though…
I lived in Kirkstall, Leeds and when aircraft flew over my back yard it was a none event.
But when the sound got louder, and louder and even louder, you still had time to unlock the back door and stand on the step as Concorde flew over taking pleasure trippers from London to Leeds, where they would then get the bus back to London. It would then do a quick “supersonic” trip with different passangers over the North Sea before swapping those fun seekers for different, none supersonic passangers who were flying back down to London, having come up on the bus.
What an aircraft! Nothing remotely like it now. But plenty of rumours about “son of Concorde”!
Time will tell if we ever see the like again.
PS I do have a drone too, and don’t just drone on and on and on😁
Legally I’m not sure, I’m not a lawyer! Even if the signs are not legally enforcable, people will take them at face value and assume you’re in the wrong, even if you’re not.
If it were me and it were a public place I’d try and find somewhere else. Even if you stay below the height of the tallest tree, I still think you’d get lots of unwanted attention depending on time of day.
I have a sub 100g drone also, and a lot of people couldn’t care less, but it only takes 1 person to kick up a fuss and this could cause all sorts of problems if you were near an airport.
One of the best things about such a small drone is that you can have fun in pretty limited space, I’d explore other local places, preferably without too many area where crashing = lost quad
Are there any football fields, tennis courts or other largish open areas near you? I’ve found these can often be pretty nice places with a few things to practice flying around
There aren’t many good things about small toy drones, but another is that you can put the propguards on and still be well under the 250g limit if it’s got a camera. This will reduce the amount of damge you do to both the drone and to other people/their property/your property/yourself, and because these things are very difficult to control properly (because there is no GPS or graduated throttle control), that is just as well…
I went through two of these before buying a ‘proper’ drone (DJI Mini SE2) on the advice of this forum. One flew off into the wide blue yonder and is still going for all I know, and I gave the other one to my neighbour for his kids to play with when I got the DJI. I learned nothing from them, because of the diffiuclty of keeping them aloft for long enough to practice…
My view now is that the minimum specificaton for a workable drone for a beginner to have a reasonable chance of being able to fly successfully is proper gps for a steady hover and ability to position itself, and graduated control for the RC sticks, not the cheapo ‘all or nothing’ whizzing about the place business of cheaptoy drones.
Even after a year’s practice, I’m still not a particularly good pilot (getting better, though), and I’ll never be a brilliantly instinctive one like some people are, but I can manage a flight, take some video, and have fun with it, and get it home safely. I couldn’t do that without gps and graduated control, and I would be much less confident without RTH. RTH is not foolproof and needs to be height-set for each flight to be properly effective, but it is certainly re-assuring. So are the intelligent batteries, which will tell me when to start for home and even tell the aircraft to start coming back if I ignore them!
In a perfect world, I would have a Mini 4 Pro, which has the obstacle avoidance capability I need to get in close to things, but in a perfect world I’d be able to afford one…
I do feel you on this one. I just wouldn’t either anywhere near an airport, but would still be great to get a legal opinion. I wonder if there is a lawyer here or in the content creator community that takes questions like this, there is a show for bikers where they will.
I didn’t put gps on my builds, though did spend a bunch of hours in sim first, and still think sim is underrated.
But if issue is not so much the drone as where you can feel comfortable to fly, only thing I can say is 30 minutes is not too bad. Maybe scout for places a little closer but also lowkey.
I’m riding about 20 to find a group of trees to practice under.
But 3/4 packs goes quick, so pretty in and out.
*obviously all los unless a dog walker agrees to spot
I get that locations are hard to find but you’re just playing with fire here.
Heathrow is literally the busiest airport in the world. Regardless of your intentions, you’re literally grouping yourself with flyers who are the biggest nuisance and a genuine safety threat. That 's how you’ll be treated even if your drone is legal and police will HAVE to intervene which will be a waste of everyone’s time.
It doesn’t help the hobby’s reputation and empowers/ validates CAA with their ever tightening regulations.
TL;DR: I hate to sound like a boot-licker, but I don’t think our hobby is more important than the safe. uninterrupted operation of the busiest airport on the planet.
Admittedly, that’s a statistic I haven’t checked in well over a decade but it’s still Europe’s busiest and London does have the world’s busiest city airport system by passenger count with Heathrow being it’s hub.
) for you to learn in and get more confidence. Every day will be a school day for sure.
