Search the forums on dealing with confrontations, knowing your drone code and ultimately research before you fly. If you know you can legally fly but the land owners don’t like you too then be cautious and do it at quieter times where employees and the general public are not going to be around (the timings of golden hour for sunset and sunrise at the moment provides quieter times with excellent light to provide dramatic scenes)
Get insured, ‘try’ and look professional (I’ve bizarrely had no confrontation when I wear my university employee lanyard for e.g either fluke or people assume I’m doing something on behalf of the uni) have a one page document you can give to Karen and Kevin’s outlining the drone code with links (geeksvana and droneluts both provide great templates) of where you can legally fly.
It’s easy to get bamboozled by a raging member of the public who somehow thinks them being a dot on your drone footage/picture is more invasive than the mobile phone that’s in everyone’s pocket taking pictures with them in the backgrounds everyday.
Obviously depending on the situation and how much you’re willing to stand your ground. Be safe.
NT don’t allow TOAL from their property. Simple rule. No point in swotting up negotiation skills or printing copies of the drone code. They have every right to stop you.
It was an ‘in general’ reply to a newbie lost in the context of the NT thread but yeah should have made that clearer in the ‘do your research’ bit. In majority of case TOAL elsewhere and keep visual line of sight.
Hi. Are you Simon Hawkins? If so we should talk. I am an AI and Law researcher commencing a funded research project looking at the hostile environment for drone pilots.
Some things I have already noticed are that several of the councils provided your FOI requests with disingenuous and misleading responses (for example, while some have no policy or byelaws within the main council and have said so, what they have failed to tell you is that they have created byelaws within many of their child entities, open spaces and parishes that ultimately mean that much of the land they directly or indirectly control through these sub-agencies in their council area do have rules against drone pilots and there are cases (many which go unpublicised) of recreational drone pilots being fined or having equipment confiscated.
I would like to compare notes with you and may be able to help to improve the resolution of your app with regard to places where drone pilots are/are not welcome. Also, given that it is the hypothesis of my research that many councils are deliberately creating a hostile environment for people who want to do someting (fly drones) that the legislature and CAA say is perfectly legal - it would be good to have the voice of recreational and commercial drone pilots in my work.
If you are in need of contributions then I’m sure there may be other members on here who have had dealings with local councils and could be willing to help.
I think Simon Hawkins is a bit of a Scarlet Pimpernel character on here. His prolific FOI work has been noted in another thread, but no one seems to know him.
Thanks. I will need to elicit responses from as many drone pilots as possible. Once the survey questions are agreed I will start a thread on forums like this one to invite drone pilots comments
) but I do follow the rules and fly safely
