New EASA drone rules - 1 July 2020 - Discussion

Lol thats good !

@milkmanchris where abouts are they perfomingmate ?
Sorry busy busy day.

Ok guys I just wanted to let you know my plan of action !
It has taken some time, hours and hours of reading and reveiwing.
My P3 is an amazing bit of kit, the photo and video are awsome and I had been using to post on a few local pages on facebook as to raise awareness and had some great responses last year, with the new rules coming in it has disappointed me as below, please be aware this is my take I may not be right but I am playing safe…I think !!! (I have a wild sence of humour always look on the good side )

July P3 is A3 open cat A2 for the next 2 years only if you do a CofC cert, new rules very unclear and would sooner do CofC when they become clearer and may even do GVC but until 100% I will not know.
I still have a need for a UAV for family holidays however even the MM will require a CofC as from July 2020 to operate outside of A3 due to its 272g MTOW and as the phantom 3 in June 2022 no matter what you hold it will go A3 PFCO I think will be done away with after 2022 and the new regs and classes will take over.again just my take on things not law so please do not shoot me !
Under 250g MTOW is being kind of left alone until 2022 rules, if a camera the registration etc but ya can still fly.
Looking around ( lets face it anything under 250g is going to be a bit rubbish compared to a P3/MP/MM guys, camera…ok / bad flying ok/ok etc ) there are not many UAV’s that in anyway perform more than like 1 M away and more than 30 seconds flying lol but I have found 1 !
I love photography, did my course in 35mm still trying to get my head around digital ! where do ya change the film ! but lets face it, without loseing 10 stone and a million ÂŁ of plastic surgery no one else will want to watch me on TV lol !
Anyway, the one I have coming is 243g MTOW no prop gaurds or provision for, 4K (2300) camera, SD card slot 32G, GPS, waypoints, 2 batteries 15 minutes (tested not manufacturers blagging ) flight time, 300m transmition range in 5.8ghz wifi so te the specs and footage I have seen is “acceptable” enough for me to use over the next 12 to 24 months, yes it will be boring, yes I will miss my P3 yes the wind may take it away but it only cost £85 !
Anyway its my plan (which er dont always work out lol ) to use this over the summer and wait the storm out if you like.
If and when it comes anyone that is interested I am more than happy to open a thread post footage (if ya really want to watch me on TV that is lol ) and answer questions.
I am looking at it as a nothing and am not going to crucify it for not delivering.
I will be taking it all over the UK this years (plan, not always working out ! ) Lakes, Scotland, Wymouth in April so should be a good test and wear it out.

Again just my take to be safe guys, have a great day.

PS. if I do not reply strait off I am not being ignorant ! I am far from that believe me I am just busy at work/kids/etc etc.

Hi have I missed something or have you not said what it is?

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Lol sorry mate…deep concentration typing I cant think lol
Well…um its hard to say its a China job lol
I have done lots and lots and lots and lots of research into it, some really good ones in fact but over 500g so out !
You have to be carefull as some have the body number on and look the same its the internals that are differant so a good one (ish) can look the same and have same number on it as a bad one.
Its a S162 4K 5,8Ghz with SD card slot.

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a Mavic Mini poor rip off !

wording on the camera says it all !.
PHTOT/VIDEO
(No!, I have spelt it correctly)

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Bit harsh :joy: it’s £85 Horses for courses or is it coarse I can never remember which (see wot I dun there

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As I said and well spotted @iGo-droning you read “I dont expect” it to be a mavic mini, sure there are lots of experts that will slate it lol…wait until 2022 it will still fly lol

Have fun and remember you can fly safe in the Knowledge you can crash it loss it have it stolen or it may fail before you get to 2022 But you can replace it 10 times before you spent Pro money :thinking: :laughing:

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Well it does seem that the new rules are becoming clearer now.
On the downside it seems that unless you have a new cat UAV (not made yet) after June 2022 you can only fly one of the prescent UAV’s (over 250g) on your own private desert island and as long as a ship of daytrippers trespassers are not within 150m of you that is or of course a helicopter is not anywhere near you.
I eel sorry for people that are dedicated to the hobby with some owning multiple UAV’s costing many thousands of pounds becoming near obseleate because of the new EASA rules.
Could they not simply re-cat the prescent UAV’s in a “fairer” way ?
It seems that they are still not just selling them but manufacturing them not to the new rules which come out in less than 4 months time.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying they will be obsolete. It is a simple matter of risk mitigations with the new EASA regs. Why would a hobby flier need to increase the risk and fly in either cat A1 or A2? Cat A3 has plenty of low risk opportunities for hobby drone pilots.

But it says 150m from buildings and recreational places, what are going to be classed as a recreational place is what worries me ? parks, beechs, public right of ways ?
After 2022 any un-cat’d UAV over 250g MTOW will only be able to fly in the A3 category.
The other thing that is upsetting is the Mavic mini with a MTOW of 272g, most minis just fly with out prop gaurds etc so they are under the 250g but they class it on MTOW, all wrong in my eyes…how many UAV flights a day and how many accidents ? alot less than cars,bikes,push bikes and pedestrians I would imagine are they going to regulate that as well ! "Whilst you are not carrying it you are capable of carrying a heavy sack on your shoulder it would make you un-balanced and could make you bump into another pedesrtian " since you were not born after XYZ it makes you a threat lol
Just think that they could do something to bring the already opperating UAV’s in line with the newer ones that they at some point “will” be making as so people are treated fairly.

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Exactly, very few accidents. That is why we have these rules to keep that statistic down. MTOW you will never avoid, if the all up weight of the aircraft can be increased beyond 249g then it has to be classed as such. Again this is about risk mitigation and not just keeping hobby pilots happy.

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I am still confused as to what the authorities are trying to address with these rules.
The most obvious is providing safety for aircraft by limiting the maximum height we can go and no-fly near airports and flying zones.

Safety for the general public should be addressed too. No flying over crowds is addressed in the drone code and EASA too, but how far should we limit distances to general flying? It should come down the speed that you are flying at (partly addressed in EASA) if you want to fly at speed, you need a safe distance from the public, otherwise keep speed low when near people and have a realistic minimum height.

This brings us on too security. For me, security shouldn’t be accounted for in drone regulations. Making me keep a distance if 50 or 150m because there is a camera on my drone is ridiculous when I can walk up to the subject with a camera or mobile phone and take a picture or use a zoom from over 150m away and get a better image than any drone on here can take. There are existing laws that cover this that boil down to ‘a reasonable expectation’ of privacy.

I have no issue with my pilot/drone ID being transmitted, as long as that is all that is sent, the relevant authority can then use this to police transgressions, but this will only effect the law abiding citizens who register.

If the authorities really want to do something about drones then actually think about it rather than this knee jerk reaction. Put the onus on manufacturers/sellers to release a code that allows full operability when the owner registers the drone, until then it is in beginner mode. All we ask is that that they come up with a proportionate response that doesn’t make older drones unable to be used in most cases.

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Yes I understand that and over the top agree and am happy that I can now do a test and pass as a hoddiest UAV flyer and prove beyond reasonable doubt that I am licenced, allowed and fully lagite, I also love the fact that the “silly” to put it mildly people of this world whom I would not trust with a paperclip and hole pucnh are going to get put to rights.
An example of this is of a youtuber who I were at one point following due to him exposing security on public ground/places etc, he bought a drone at christmas time and posted a video of him and his uncle in a kids park flying, no gps, no saftey software just a cheap “buy and fly” drone, open props and his first flight ever ! his uncle got his stuck up a tree and their idea to get it down were to throw a metal bar blindly up in the air to try and knock it down while the other flew around the kids park and climbing frames with his thinking they were o so clever, this to me shows the lack of respect for others and ignorance.
I watched the appauling video and made a comment to the fact that what he was doing was not simply wrong but against the CAA rules as well, his "educated " reply was “Incorrect, only drones that weigh 250g or more are under these rules. My drone is unregulated.”

This is what we need to get rid of as to show us all as decent flyers and not like him.

I hust find it hard to believe that they cant categorise the existing UAV’s to fall inline with the new regs coming into force, or will they ?

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You may find this of interest

EASA (Euro wide agreement documentation effectively) started being discussed some 4+ yrs ago to get it to law given what is involved in getting all member states to sign up then UK doing what they have done is probably to be applauded given how Us Brits have to make things overly complicated it’s not too bad

We can be Thankful that DJI have been there to lobby on their behalf obviously ( That’s DJI’S behalf)

It is very difficult to retro test an old system to a new set of class rules.

Where was that statement from about EASA being discussed 4 years ago?

And it’s just a coincidence that the drone signup became law after the Gatwick Shutdown? Not a knee jerk reaction at all?

I’ve mentioned it a few times on here nearly 2 years ago and on mavic pilots well before that.

It was always on the cards.

Part of the reason many were disapointed when they released the MP2 over 900g.

Here’s an article from early 2017.

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Interesting read but it bears little resemblance to the EASA regulations that could be in force this year.