There is a difference between ‘guidance’ and it’s the law.
By law your altitude is limited to 400ft.
By law your horizontal distance is ?
In open countryside I can clearly see my Inspire 2 at 700Mt and at an altitude of 250ft, my sight works in conjunction with my control input in order to fly safely. It requires more concentration of sight when in a hover at that distance than when flying a circuit.
I worry more about full size aircraft when at 400ft than at 250ft and other than military, I do not expect a small private aircraft to be that low.
During a job I’m happiest to be as close as safely possible to my subject and Inspire as I can.
Personally I never really like flying beyond VLOS, more to do with if something went wrong rather than avoiding aircraft. I know it probably sounds silly but I feel much more comfortable if I can see it. I would still fly like up to 500m if I could still see it but no further
It doesn’t matter what the distance is 300m,1000m, 600m, 10m, it’s when you lose sight of it whatever that distance may be, it is probably different for all of us, it doesn’t need a figure
The guidance clearly says, as long as, “the remote pilot must be able to clearly see the unmanned aircraft and the surrounding airspace at all times while it is airborne.”
I was flying at night yesterday and interestingly you can see the drone much further! So perversely at night you could fly further and still have VLOS!
I’ve now put 4 Cree strobes on & use them on every flight so I’ve omnidirectional sight of it especially when against a tree line.
Looking at some of the videos posted recently I’ve been scratching my head as to how the pilot has kept VLOS even if they had a spotter with them. EVLOS maybe but I didn’t think that was accepted yet.
Temptation gets us all but is it worth it? No. Not to the responsible pilot. DP will be rubbing their hands together
To be fair, this is entirely the CAA’s fault for going on about a 500m figure in CAP722 and elsewhere. The way they talk about it there is not very helpful.
They do excel in contradiction, lack of clarification and adjectives that have wide interpretations.
Even in CAP722 “Within the UK, VLOS operations are normally accepted out to a maximum distance of 500 metres” … but no absolute limit or what is included in “normally”.
