I’m new to drones and very law abiding. If a law in header makes sense and is based on a need for it to correct something bad I support it fully. If it doesn’t make sense 8 have the right to question its validity…
Eg. Cars kill people every day and we can drive them anywhere after passing a test.
I can’t find any evidence of a drone killing someone but they are banned in many places above 250g. ( why 250g? That would hurt if it fell from 400 foot on your head!). I get the 400 foot as it makes sense and bigger stuff flies over that level.
As a total newcomer the drone laws seem to be ridiculous and like every thing in life 99% of us are sensible. No law stops the other 1%.
Has anyone asked these obvious questions to the “ drone police”? If so where is the evidence of many injuries or deaths?
It appears the laws are based on assumptions and that undermines them totally.
Let’s ban bikes from many public places as they can hurt or kills someone?
See you are rattled about that as it’s more common and would affect more people.
Right off to my bunker for a few weeks after asking such a pertinent question,
I don’t quite understand your question. If you’re going to charged with a crime there always has to be evidence or witnesses.
Are you asking specifically about the CAA laws or bye-laws? Or something else entirely.
The answer is probably: research the area. Use dronescene to find out if you’re good to go, and use some common sense to fly at times to not annoy the general public or wildlife.
The general rule of thumb is. you need land owners permission to take off and land. But you can fly over whatever the hell you want once you’re in the air. Assuming you stick to the drone code.
They are pretty much based on assumption. And a speculative worse case scenario. However some of the “evidence” used to back up some of the assumptions has been disproved.
One youtuber who has questioned rules extensively (all though in NZ) is xjet
The police don’t make the laws, they just enforce them. Maybe a question worth putting to the CAA who would give the guidance to the law makers I’m guessing.
The current regulations were proposed and accepted by politicians and those with a vested financial interest in the commercial use of SUAV tech. At no time was the community canvassed. There was a consultation document but it was primarily ignored.
Model flying has a near 100yr safety record that is beyond reproach.
Add to this that in the last 10 to 15 years that hobby drones have been flying there is not one recorded incident of loss of life.
Our Isle of Man CAA had a very refreshing approach to this when they decided to not just keep on copying the UK CAA rules. They invited all of the (then) commercially registered drone pilots to a face to face meeting, I think there were 15 of us that managed to attend. They gave a presentation on what they were thinking followed by a question and answer session where they took quite a few potential changes on board. The results were then presented to our politicians (Tynwald) and the laws produced. Compared to the UK & EU, the IOM drone laws are much simpler and easier to understand, they basically have two catagories, below 250g in which case the only law that applies is not to fly over the prison. From 250g to 25Kg the rules are simple and straightforward, if you need to operate outside them, you can apply to the CAA for ‘Permissions’. I have four at present, other may well have more: Night Flying, flying within 5Km of the airport, Flying within Residential, Industrial, commercial ot recreational areas and flying with reduced separation from non involved persons. I think that to obtain these permissions you need to present an Operations Manual to the CAA, I juts revised my previous Commercial Ops one to comply with the new laws. There is also no requirement to register operators or drones in the IOM, our CAA saw it as having no benefit and just costing everybody money. https://www.gov.im/media/1371089/cp4_sua.pdf
I participated in the UK ‘consultation’ but was unhappy that there seemed to be no opportunity to come up with new ideas, I suspected that it was a ‘ticking the boxes’ exercise and that they had already decided on the rules to be applied, which was just to follow the EU ones which are hugely complicated in my opinion.
Not too sure what you mean, we have exactly the same airspace classifications as in the UK. The easy part was that there were only around a total of 16 commercial drone operators to invite to a meeting
Their is a big distinction between EU legislation and European legislation. Air Navigation falls under the latter and is dictated by geography and not as to whether you’re a member of the Union.
What I am saying is the UK drone laws do not face up to any real scrutiny, are not there because of any need to prevent death and serious injury to people and are therefore just about worthless. Perhaps an alternative would be something along the lines of the countryside code?
Probably they are there to make money out of us via certification or training courses.
The under 250g rules for drones seems to fit the bill correctly, in my opinion. A <250g drone is often described as having the weight and size of an apple, and an apple ‘allegedly’ fell from a tree and hit Isaac Newton on the head. That apple didn’t kill, or hurt, Isaac Newton, but inspired him to research and document his thoughts on gravity. This then proved that a <250g drone is reasonably safe, and could, in certain circumstances, possibly make some people more intelligent if drones fell from the sky and landed on them, and why more people are allowed to fly drones today. Perhaps, if Isaac Newton had been sitting under a coconut tree, the <250g limit for drones might have been set at <900g, or if things had gone badly, we might never have heard of Isaac Newton.
No matter what rules the CAA/Govt ever makes, people will always question, or creep over the edge of those rules.
eg A 70 MPH speed limit on a motorway is more like 75MPH.
If a large heavy drone flies above a crowd of innocent people, who are not aware of its presence, and it crashes into them, it will inflict injuries.
Whereas a small light drone would cause a lot less damage.
So I’m grateful that the Govt/CAA decided on 249g, because if they’d decided on 100g - a lot of us wouldn’t be flying drones at all!
Not that any law will ever deter the “I know better” Mk I idiots from doing stupid and dangerous things though, you’ve only got to have a look at YouTube to discover that!
