A tourist flying a drone for leisure purposes is not the same as importing a drone to e.g. give to your relative there, so less onerous. However with the registration form they are asking for a list of specific places, dates and times you plan to fly, and whether you have specific permission from the locations in question - for this you’re invited to upload forms showing you have such permission. You can upload your insurance form too, but it seems that is not specifically required for sub 250g drones.
We’re going to SL in January for a nephew’s wedding. I’m thinking to take the Mini3. Outside of the locality of Galle Fort, I have no specific clue about what locations we are going to be visiting. Could be Kandy, and/or Nuwara Eliya, and/or Anuradhapura and/or up Yala way.
Does anyone have experience of filling out this form and getting permission to fly in Sri Lanka? How specific did you get with locations dates and times? Did you get any pushback for flying outside these envelopes?
Indeed, is there an active drone police that pops up every time you Take Off?
I would love to hear of anybody’s successful drone experience in Sri Lanka. I would also be curious about unsuccessful registering and/or flying efforts.
Good luck with your endeavour to discover what the authorities in Sri Lanka are trying to ascertain. Sounds like they have no clue how most amateur drone flyers choose to fly, much like the powers that be in the relatively nearby Maldives where I’d booked a dive trip in 2022. What island location, date & time of flight, height etc…etc. was what they wanted to know.
In my application for permission to fly I informed them I’d be on a liveaboard dive boat which would be cruising through several atolls spread over several hundred kilometres with the route probably subject to change depending on weather conditions but that I had a map showing the locations of all seaplane bases on all the islands, knew not to fly anywhere near them, as well as Maldives flight regulations & asking permission from a particular island’s hotel management was irrelevant in my case as I wasn’t staying on any islands. Made my application months in advance but never even got a reply, so took a chance & only did a couple of low level shots of our stationary vessel near coral reefs way out in the boondocks well away from any resort islands. Hardly worth the effort really considering the hoops they asked one to jump through. Hope you have better luck with the S.L. authorities than I had with the Maldives!
Not Sri Lanka related, but when I applied to the authorities in Rhodes, Greece and they wanted to know where/when/flight path etc, I gave them a much wider latitude of scope than I needed as it was impossible to know where I would be able to launch from. They were more than happy with my answers and I received a stamped approval back within 24 hours. Never did get to fly though as it was way too windy and by the time it had died down, I was well over the legal BAC to fly anything safely
