You’re welcome to be a test case, it’s long overdue. The most relevant one is bye-law 24 (nuisance, annoyance, disturbance etc), which does only apply to people “on Trust Property”. Which makes it better than bye-law 19, which isn’t limited to Trust Property but makes it an offense to train your dog anywhere in the country!
It’s only a £20 fine, so it’s well worth setting a legal precedent to help the rest of us out. Since magistrates generally don’t understand the law that well you may find they ignore the legal niceties and find you guilty anyway.
Wherever you stand, you may still be trespassing if your UAS flies over at a sufficiently low level, but that’s not a crime and the chances of NT sueing you successfully would be minimal.
IIRC the actual fine was €660 not €6000 (and he also had a hefty reduction for prompt payment on that). It didn’t help that the pilot apparently couldn’t speak a word of Spanish and understandably the ranger wasn’t completely comfortable trying to explain outside his native language.
Unfortunately decisions in Mags are not binding precedents so even a favourable decision wouldn’t be much use to other pilots unless they appeal it higher up.
They are not enforceable (at least NT by-laws are not). If you fly over NT land, following the drone laws, there is nothing they can do about it. They can only prevent you from taking off and controlling from their land. If you are outside of the NT land, they have no jurisdiction.
Indeed. By far the best approach to all this is, as has been said before, fly at a quiet time, don’t annoy anyone, and just get on with it. Taking the legal route also increases the risk in future that NT (and their ilk) feel it’s necessary to pursue making changes to their bye-laws. Let sleeping NTs lie.
