Flying in from NW Surrey

Just landed here (thanks to PingSpike) and excited to see a forum dedicated to, shall be say ‘life-experienced’, drone pilots in the UK.

I’m very much the newbie having only had my Mavic Pro for three days and still overcoming the FUD factor (fear uncertainty and doubt). Hope to be getting it in the air very soon.

My background is photography and writing and I plan to use the Mavic as a new camera platform, literally taking my image-making skills to new heights!

Welcome @Londroner :smiley:

What are the NFZs like round your way?

I live t’up nort’ now, but I was born in London, grew up around Wimbledon, Mitcham, Sutton, Croydon, etc!

I’d imaging you’re probably quite restricted round that way, as they’re all within the M25 really. Is this an issue for you?

Still, the A3 will quickly (well, maybe not that quickly due to traffic lol) take you outside of the M25 to Guildford and the start of some decent countryside and scenery?

Not good, in a nutshell. I’m about six miles from Heathrow, which casts a big red ‘shadow’ over my whole location. DJI’s app shows me in a Class D area with ‘caution to fly’. Ironically I have some great open ground near me like Runnymede (a short walk away) and Chobham Common. However, National Trust owns the former and Surrey Wildlife Trust controls the latter. Both have blanket no- drones rules.

There’s a good spot in the Surrey Hills near Guildford which is about 40 minutes way or, I’m told, part of Richmond Park to my east. I’m trying to check out both of them to see if they’re suitable.

Other than that, I’m hoping to find a friendly farmer with a spare field! No luck yet.

Bloody hell… nightmare scenario :frowning:

The Manchester flightpath to the west coast is about ten miles south of me so I’m well clear of it, but there were some places I wanted to check out that like you say, fall under the big red shadow.

Yes, those big red shadows are going to be the bane of our lives as dronies (hmm, got to be a better collective noun).

I’m assuming Class D is more of an advisory not to fly rather than a total ban otherwise DJI wouldn’t let you take off. If you follow the rules and fly responsibly I’m hoping there’ll be no nasty consequences. Or am I wrong?

No, I think you’re right. I wanted to fly around the local football stadium and the NATS app shows a perfectly formed geofence around the stadium itself whereas the DJI GO app just drops a pin in the middle with a ridiculously huge radius around it (half a mile!)

I had to jump through various DJI hoops just to take off in the surrounding area :roll_eyes: and then on the day I went there, soooo much cloud. Typical :slight_smile:

Haha. I feel your pain. Maybe we ought to start a list of the drawbacks of drone flying.
NFZs
Weather
Hostile natives
High winds
…and so on. :wink:

Expense…
Time…

The list is probably endless :smiley:

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if you know of some good places for scenery please let me know, in sutton, surrey I been to leith hill early in the morning and nosuch park but i looking for those special places that look special from above

How about Wimbledon Common, up by the old windmill?

You’d instantly qualify for the 2018 Treasure Hunt Challenge too :wink:

Just checked, it’s 200 years old :open_mouth:

http://www.wimbledonwindmill.org.uk