Ring DJI and ask that they do something about the height limit. They can’t currently do anything but if they get enough requests they may react.
The guy on the phone answered with a couple of rings, was unable to help now, but said he would report my concerns.
The UK number is +442076603037
FWIW - I have just turned my mini 5 on for the first time since all this, so no updates or anything, and it is limited to 120. I know it was at 500 when I switched it off last.
This is just all part of an ever tightening ratchet on drone use, things will continue to the point that in 3 or 4 years from now usage will likely be restricted to certain hobbyist areas only with huge limits on speed, distance and other parameters. It is almost guaranteed, so this is a hobby that is very much dwindling in terms of freedom. It has changed my perspective entirely on the future of it to be honest, its a battle that can’t be won as the government and CAA will act based on limiting their own culpability around efforts to kerb misuse, and they will operate in line with whatever the political agenda is at the time. Us as people, hobbyists or even businesses are of no concern to them, we just exist as one irrelevant cohort of people. Having worked for the government for 3 decades the processes, confusion and lack of logic are all a repeated theme that exists across the board. It has always been there and will never go away, just like the people who flout the laws which forces their hand in implementing these measures. Human nature and the consequent response of the state.
I think we have a couple of years of this fairly free use until the restrictions really start to ramp up - meaning we are confined to certain designated zones and probably after submitting permissions for every flight.
Then that’s when the law will just get broken be a lot of people, So they will just end up making it worse as they do with everything, Like the whole cigarette thing they just opened another black market that’s how thick they actually are. They think itl stop people well it won’t.
Half the laws in the country now can’t and aren’t policed so this won’t make a difference.
That’s just it, the police “service” doesn’t actually exist anymore, it’s just the public are not fully aware of the depth of the issues yet.
To be shocked or even surprised is in itself surprising… Why would you expect anyone flying a drone to read anything more than the drone code itself? Most people fly drones occasionally for quick photos. That’s it. What is shocking that they have to register and pay a pointless fee annually and go through endlessly changing rules that are hopelessly over complicated for the 99.99% of users. And fight their way through a code that itself is overly complicated and contradictory.
In order to make my drone rules videos, I wade through and cross reference countless CAA documents, then find out they’ve been superceded by other documents, rules or exemptions. It’s a near impossible task for anyone to be aware of all the complex rules that are in place for no other reason than a constant unfounded fear of what might happen without any evidence to support them.
The CAA’s role is to make airspace safe. That’s it. A drone hurting a person on the ground is no different to a person being hurt by a bike being ridden irresponsibly or a football smacking into someone walking near a footie field.
The rules could literally be “Stay below 60 metres” and nothing more, and that would keep airspace safe.
That’s the CAA’s remit. Keep airspace safe. Nothing more.
And when a public body makes swathes of rules that even saddos like us can’t understand; saddos like us who spend hours and hours discussing them and trying to understand what they mean, then what hope is there for the general public, who just want to throw the drone up and take some pictures and videos once in a while.
That’s why so many rules are ignored, because they lack the justification and simplicity that the actual evidence commands.
Steps down off milk crate…
Please see:
I did, but that was just as a pointless response to @OzoneVibe 's point as it is to mine. It does however tell me when I’m right up there with pushing water up hill…
How high is the hill?
The pointless part of this new implementation is, it was designed to keep people legal. But by their own flawed logic, someone can stand ontop of scarfell, take off, lift to 120m perfectly legal by the EASA regulations. But then fly out 100m, totally illegal as the law states you have to be 120m AGL so all that time and effort and money has been wasted on a flawed implementation, yet again. Because they dont fully understand what they are doing.
I think it’s more about just keeping the majority of people legal in most situations, and the difficulty drones have in measuring their actual heigh above ground. That said, whilst I get the restriction in max speed for C1 models as the C1 class is what’s allowing it to fly in A1 over people situations, there was no such requirement to amend C0 models. Sub 250 gram models can already be flown like C0 models, so, (leaving aside the extra 2 grams of the Mini 5 Pro,) there was no real need to change anything about the current range of C0 labelled models as they could already fly in all places being under 250 grams…
It would be nice to decertify our drones and sit in the legacy category but I suspect that would come back and bite in 2028.
That will only ever be achieved with straight-forward and simple rules/regs … like those we used to have. 
What the CAA says is two different but not mutually exclusive things for post-2028 UKO drones. Firstly, the drone must not be capable of attaing more than 120m height above the take-off point, and secondly, must not be flown at a distance greater than 120m from the nearest point on the surface of the earth. That could concievably be 120m horizontally from a cliff face over 1,000m AGL.
What DJI appear to have apparently done is to physically limit their drones in EASA and UK airspace to 120m above the take-off point irrespective of the above CAA rule. It makes it impossible to overfly the top of a hill that is more than 120m higher than the take-off point. I am not clear what happens if the pilot moves to a different location; is the take-off point datum updated along with the home point?
I am following this debate in the hope of learning something, but I doubt it will have much impact on my flight planning or actual flying. That said, I do sometimes fly from clifftops, and may need to ensure that I do not overfly the cliff edge, thst is if my drone now allows me to do this!
The rules are set by people at the top of empires who are not practitioners or well versed in the subject which they are presiding over. Decisions are made in conjunction with their “advisors” who may have some experience of the subject but again would not fulfil the true definition of a subject matter expert. One size fits all in order to cover the actions of the lowest common denominator is the easiest and cheapest option, which is what we see here. It is a standard process rolled out by authorities across a range of legislation and policy, to try and force compliance without consideration or consultation with all involved. How long until lateral restrictions are imposed on the distance between drone and controller to enforce VLOS in a similar way? Laugh - but this could well happen without warning just as the height limit has. 50m maximum distance from your controller, boom, done.
I was thinking today about all the businesses that rely on drone usage as part of their services, and will be finding out the hard way as they try to go about their work. Particularly those who film for a living, in hilly and undulating areas. This really will have an adverse impact on their work, but what voice are they likely to have?
I think we just need to understand and accept that this hobby is going to become increasingly more controlled to the detriment of responsible operators, the likes of which are on this forum (milkman aside of course 
)
Most of those won’t be using C0 or C1 drones and will be flying under an AO so this wouldn’t affect them.
It probably is, but the example i used was an extreme. The problem is on a lesser scale in undulating land. The user is the issue not the equipment, and the uneducated in the regs will still make this error. So by nobbling all they have pretty much achieved nothing. Except new users will rely on the tech, which wont actually stop what the legislation tried to achieve.
It won’t affect me anyway, but it boils my piss when a sledgehammer is used on the wrong target, and non of the temu grade drones will have this done to them. The rules were relatively simple now they have added another layer.
One rule only
Don’t be a dick
And if you cannot abide by that don’t buy DJI
And I’ve a few more hours of been a responsibile operator than you ;o)
Just think how refreshing it would be if, instead of lurking, he took a few minutes to comment on some of the “who can decipher what the CAA actually mean here” threads we’ve got going at the moment. What an amazing, but entirely wasted, opportunity for some much-needed clarity.
I do know one of the major disconnects between the CAA and specifically DJI, started when they were suspected of shipping a potentially modified mini 5 pro for classification …
And I don’t think it’s appropriate for anyone to have bought a product which has been modified remotely in order for DJI to continue to sell products in the U.K. … I’m just pissed off I didn’t buy an Air 3s instead last October!
And where do we even start on the major disconnects between CAA and drone operators? 