Due to go to Canada (Toronto and Vancouver) this weekend and wondered if anyone has any insights on whether it’s worth taking my Mini 2.
This official page seems to suggest for a sub-250g drone you don’t need to register or anything, and you would be ok to fly so long as you stay 30m horizontally away from people. That seems pretty permissive though and I’m not sure I trust it to be that easy in practice.
Also somewhat nervous about taking the drone on the flight - assume it would probably be ok in carry-on, but I don’t have a li-po battery bag for my spares so am wondering if they would be ok in the fly more charger …
Overall I’m probably leaning towards not trying it this time - I’ll have my camera so can probably get enough photography out of that for the trip but keen to see what people think.
Just come back from Canada and was going to take mine, about 2 weeks before I departed I looked it all up on Canada.gov site and seen that all non Canadian visitors must have a permit even for just leisure flying, but in the end didn’t, it looked like the department that issued permits was closed online anyway? So I didn’t risk it! Gutted really, I was in BC in the Rockies at it was stunning! Good luck if you do fly.
I found this post while researching the pros/cons of taking our DJI Mini 2 to Canada in June. Just keen to see if anyone has got any more information.
From what I can see, as stated above, < 250g drones don’t need to be registered or require a pilot’s license. The no go areas are clearly visible on an interactive map like this, it appears that all national parks are no fly zones
There doesn’t seem to be a anything like dronescene where you can see where people have flown, love to hear otherwise. We’re heading to the west coast, Vancouver seems to be covered by one large NFZ, Vancouver Island seems ok outside of Victoria and the rockies seem to be covered by the National parks restrictions.
Hello again, haven’t been flying much since I left Scotland and all the fish farm nonsense! I’m now off to Canada to see my son who lives there (lucky sod). I think I’m up to speed with the airline rules, drone in cabin bag, with 2 spare batts, terminals protected. I guess that means I can leave one batt installed and 2 more in the 3 way Mini 3 Pro charger. Do you know if it’s mandatory to register with whatever the Canadian version of the FAA? A few years ago I went to the U.S. and had to do that.
Looking forward to some snowy scenes in Whistler, near Vancouver. Thanks for any advice.
I did create a user on the transport Canada drone management portal but that’s as far as I got. Most of the places we visited were covered by the national park restrictions and that put me off. I’ve just logged on to the transport site again and see what there’s some more detail about foreign pilots flying in Canada which I didn’t see ( or at least don’t remember seeing ) when I was going through this.
This might help as it illustrates what’s needed for basic flights
Hope you have a great time, we’d go back there in a heart beat.
Hey thanks for that. I’ll be taking the Mini 3 so much of it doesn’t apply. Also I found this: Drone site selection tool - National Research Council Canada which you’d already posted. It looks like there might be a few places around Whistler that would be OK. Is the National Park stuff in addition to these prohibited areas?
Hi, I believe you’re right, we did spend a bit of time in Whistler and from what I remember it’s outside of the main national parks so clear from the huge fines they talk about. I saw a number of people flying drones ( even in the Jasper National Park ) so I may have been over cautious.
