The only relevant restriction in A2 is to keep 50m horizontally from people. It’s only A3 that requires you to stay 150m away from industrial (etc) areas.
OK. Thanks for the clarification. Just to be pedantic, imagining a 50m arc over a person, what is the “over” where you musn’t go? Is 50m away but 20° off vertical allowable? What about 45°? Surely it also depends on the wind direction.
50m horizontally. That defines a cylinder around the person, of 50m radius and up to any height.
If you need to fly closer, you can use a sub-250g drone.
No flying over uninvolved people
Sort of
Legally, that’s exactly what the regulations say. See also my previous diagram here, the 50m horizontal separation to people applies whether you are in A2 (holding an A2 CofC certificate) or in A3 (without one). The only difference between those is that if you think it’s an industrial area, the A2 CofC lets you fly within it.
However the over-riding principle still applies that you must not endanger anyone. The CAA provide advice in CAP722 (page 42) (which you’re likely to get told about if you do A2 CofC training) that you shouldn’t fly any closer to uninvolved people than your height above the surface i.e. if you’re at 100m height, you should stay 100m away. This is the so-called 1:1 rule. It’s not legally binding, but if something went wrong, complying with it would no doubt be a point in your favour.
If you want an added complication (and I think you probably don’t), members of the model aircraft associations (BMFA, FPV(UK) etc) now have permission to fly closer to uninvolved people, down to 30m and even including flying overhead, but only in areas which are not residential, commercial or industrial. So you’d be back to that basic question again.
Throw a curved ball won’t you! I completely missed the 1:1 rule. Never heard of it.
To be honest, neither had I until I did my A2 CofC, and it’s not a rule I’ll be taking very seriously.