Our partners at ARPAS are conducting a survey on the ease and cost of requesting permission to fly in a FRZ, and/or to TOAL from private land.
If you have made a request to ATC for permission to fly in a FRZ in the last 12 months, or made a request to a land owner for permission to TOAL, then this survey is for you.
How easy was the process? Did you have to pay to make the request? Or pay to TOAL?
Please complete the survey below:
Please also share and discuss your experiences here
I’ve only done 1 FRZ flight, thanks to the 7th Birthday challenge but I completed the survey anyway.
Rochester ATC were very efficient and gave me permission within 3 hours to fly on my selected date. A contact number and option choice number was supplied and answered almost immediately for take off and land notification to the ATC tower.
At first I thought he told me to taxi to runway 9, I was a bit confused as I was at my flight spot not at the airport, then realised he wasn’t talking to me. A mental moment of thought was will my my mini 3 pro battery last that long to fly from the airport and where the heck was the airport
It was a good experience.
I recently took a photo over a farmers field I took off from a public lane the farmer asked if he could have a copy as it showed his farmhouse which I let him have I said could I ask for permission to toal from his land and he just said yes message me next time your about
Filled in the forms,
I tend not to fly where there could be complications on getting authorisation but only flown one FRZ ever & that was for the birthday challenge this year but it was a lot easier than what I thought ie the process etc & was very quick in getting authorisation
Tried a few times to obtain permission to fly around Heysham head & the cliffs there which falls within the FRZ around the Nuclear Power station & the unused Helipad at the harbour. No response to various messages or e-mails at the time. I notice now, there’s a Crawley number for the British Microlight Association re Middleton Sands, so whether that works I’ve yet to try.
I have asked for permission to fly in Coventry FRZ many times, and rarely get any push back. One slight frustration is that they ask for 6 days notice, but often the permission is granted within an hour or so, and so im not sure why they need the 6-days notice period.
The survey gathered responses from across the country, with input from both commercial and recreational drone operators.
It aimed to understand the experiences of drone pilots when seeking approval to fly from areas such as aerodromes and private land. The results offer valuable insights into the efficiency, cost, and communication methods involved in the permission process.
The results indicate that the majority of permission requests are granted within a reasonable timeframe and without any associated fees. Two-thirds of approvals were granted within just three days and a substantial 84% of processes were free of charge. The survey also highlights the preferred methods of communication for obtaining permissions and these findings suggest a generally streamlined and accessible process for drone operators seeking flight approvals.
To gain a more in-depth understanding of the survey findings and their implications please watch the video below which provides an analysis of the data, explores trends, and offers insights: