You can fly within 150 metres of residential recreational industrial commercial areas.
Is that “within” meaning to within a 150 metres boundary of those areas or do they mean within as inside the 150 metres boundary. Common sense would imply the former interpretation except you can do that anyway using the A3 open category which is the most restrictive class for legacy drones. In which case that doesn’t seem to make GVC standard permissions a big deal. It just means you can fly 50/30 metres from uninvolved people.
Anyone?
Upto. I.e not closer than.
Thanks Steve. That’s what I thought but as you can do that anyway with a legacy drone in the A3 sub cat of the open cat I thought I’d just check and make sure. I am surprised! I would have thought at least a GVC with the basic PDRA would have authorised flying geographically closer than someone simply flying a legacy drone in the open cat. But then I’m also surprised you can fly a Mini 2 in your back garden (within reason).
OK for anyone else reading this topic I’ve since had the statement clarified by UAVHUB training. The answer is with the A3 open category you have to stay 150 metres OUTSIDE / away from the congested areas. With the PDRA01 OA granted by the CAA on a GVC qualification you can fly 150 metres INSIDE / within congested areas. So the two permissions are totally different in scope.
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The key advantages to the GVC compared to flying in the same areas in A2 are that there’s no legacy drone period, and that you can fly above people.
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As long as you’ve got a risk assessment for it.
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The PDRA01 standard permissions risk assessment does not allow you to fly over people. You will need a custom OA from the CAA with your own approved RA to fly over people in the Specific Cat.
Ironically the under 250g Mini 2 flying in A1 sub open category does allow you to unintentionally fly over people. I suppose 250g mass is considered a minor risk compared with a drone of mass several Kg. Mind you I don’t fancy getting hit with a Mini 2 in freefall plumeting to ground at 100 kph. LOL 
I’ll re-phrase that, it has to be a “specific” risk assessment for that job/flight.
Where does it say that? The PDRA01 details in CAP722 are the same as the old PfCO standard permission: 50m from uninvolved persons (it doesn’t say horizontal distance). Is there more information somewhere else?
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You’re correct. I checked back and you can fly over them. My mistake. I was confusing it with the restriction re. assemblies of 1000 or more people. You cannot fly over those large groups. God knows how you can judge the difference between just under 1000 or over 1000 people though. LOL.
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