Bournemouth - Nowhere to fly?

Hello, I live in Bournemouth and don’t have a car. I’ve been looking around literally everywhere possible to fly but I can only find very little public areas that I can. There are like 5 playing fields and no public areas of beauty. If there is any area outside of the built up places it is either NT land, an SSSI tied to a nature reserve, private land or forestry land.

I really want to get 150m away from Residential, Commercial, Recreational and Industrial land but there is literally no where to go.

Any help / Ideas would be greatly appreciated!

(I can and have been flying at nearby parks but those don’t provide me enough space to use things like DJI’s automated features that I’d love to test out.)

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The beach?

Check our very own Dronscene

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Beach is a good area but there are too many tourists there all the time. I was thinking of a more grassy area that has open and public land but the only real places are public parks with about 25 dog walkers always in view at all times.

I’m really not wanting the risk of agitating a dog or a person while flying…

(I just want to clarify I’ve looked at drone scene a lot but I genuinely haven’t found any good land.)

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I have similar issues in Devon - my solution is to get out at the crack of dawn, 4am this time of year and be ready to fly first light - get some nice sunrise shots & very few people around apart from the odd yoga nut on the beach : ) - also an ebike has been a useful investment - good luck!

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I also don’t have a car, but as I’m a) a pensioner and b) live in Wales, I can get about free on buses. Looks like a lot of small parks and public spaces, and the airport FRZ; I see what you mean. This means you need to think outside tbe box when you look at maps!

Assuming you can use public transport and are ok on your feet (sorry, I know it’s a stereotype, but, you know, “Bournemouth”), there seems from a brief squiz to be a large area of open ground in Christchurch, in the Avon Valley north of the railway station. Power lines on the west side and trees on the east, but a big space between.

If you are bothered by dogs or birds (seagulls and, especially, oystercatchers will try to ‘mob’ your drone), switch to ‘Sports’ mode and fly directly upwards, vertically at full throttle; a dog can’t jump more than 20’ at most, and I’m talking Doberman for that, and birds cannot fly directly upwards at anything like your speed. Once you’re high enough, get outta Dodge, fast!

The beach gets less crowded towards Christchurch as well, and, if buses can be used, there is a lot of open common area on the Purbeck Hills and Kimmeridge Ledges. Hengistbury Head looks a good spot, too, and there’s plenty of open heathland around Studland! NT does not allow TOAL from their land, but you can overfly it from a public road…

SSSI’s are not ‘out of bounds’, they are marked in yellow on Drone Scene maps as ‘Ground Hazards’. That means that they are features that you need to be aware of as a pilot, that might need particular care to be taken when you are flying there, and as well as SSSI’s they include tall buildings, masts, cables, railways, motorways, and ‘sensitive’ locations like hospitals and schools.

It is of course nesting season, and if the SSSI is designated for bird or animal reasons, then you need to stay away from nests and burrows, but unless you deliberately buzz the wildlife (in which case you deserve anything that’s coming to you), you will do no harm. All SSSIs are highlighted in yellow by default, even when they are because of geological interest or because of rare plants; flying over rare plants won’t affect them (but watch where you are treading)…

Recreation grounds and public sports areas are good as well. Probably not on a Saturday morning when all the local league games are being played, with spectators lining the pitches, but midweek they are likely to be quieter. I use a recreation park about 10 minutes walk away for practice and ad hoc unplanned spur-of-the-moment sessions, and at most times there are people about, dogwalkers included, but not many and not a problem. Keep high enough for the noise not to bother them and most of them won’t notice you’re there, and you’ll be safely above the trees*! In a year of flying I am yet to have an aggressive reaction from anyone; perhaps I’m lucky! In fact the main problem is people being too friendly and wanting to know all about the drone, which is distracting while you are flying. I just put the drone into a hover and chat to them!

*Give trees at least twice as much room as you think they need. They are tricksy little buggers, and will bring your drone down at tthe least touch, as well as being able to move in the wind. They’ll jump out on you when you’re not looking.

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Get the Breezer 50 bus down to Sandbanks which will go over on the ferry. Fly around Studland - a great area.

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I was down there a while ago - as Fledermaus said, get out early and you’ll be absolutely fine. I took my bike along the beach early doors and got some great flying around the main bit of pier as well as Sandbanks.
It’s worth just doing a recce one day without the drone, see where there’s quieter places to take off from. As long as you’re not taking off or landing from the beach itself, you can fly from plenty of places near the shorefront.

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Thanks for all these replies! All of these areas are definitely places I’ll have to consider. Do you know if there is any land I can stand in while flying though? I’m very much wanting to use my AIR 3S Activetrack and I just can’t find good places to do it. (By the way, I can use any public transport. so that’s not a problem.)

Most if not all land outside of the beach + parks is NT land or National Forestry or a nature reserve (sadly the byelaws here don’t allow flight at nature reserves even if there aren’t animals.)

Loving all of this new info though, thank you very much you kind souls!

Take a bus to Poole there’s lots to do there - and don’t overthink things!