Just a quick question - when I see yellow and orange areas am I still OK to fly a dji mini 4 pro (i.e. under 250g), as long as I take care. There seem to be a lot around here, Southampton.
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Yes… but still important to read the details and understand what the risk is.
The one you’ve posted is a warning of multiple aircraft operating in the area down to as low as 250ft. There’s another one in the area for a Red Arrows display over Chichester (for the Goodwood Festival of Speed), so presumably it’ll be them.
Given the speed they’ll come by at, I’d be asking myself if I really need to put my drone up in the time the NOTAM is active for.
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The one and only warning was for the Red Arrows flying from Bournemouth to Goodwood via across the Isle of Wight. I saw them on their way back. I really don’t know why that radius was so big.
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Same here. Their route is plotted for them and can be gleaned from the NOTAM, but the circular area they give them is massive.
We had the Red Arrows here over the weekend, with similar NOTAM blue circles up. The size of the circle I suspect relates to the height the aircraft will fly at, as they go up a fair way in some of the display manoevres. This is high risk flying in close formation, spectacular to watch but normal pilots like to keep a safe distance apart from each other. Anything untoward high up needs a good sized radius in which the a/c can be brought down under whatever control is available, or in the worst-case scenario, the wreckage. And AFAIK some of the Red Arrows display is dependent on wind direction as well, so the NOTAM area has to take that into account. A crash at height would spread debris over a large area downrange of the impact site in the direction each aircraft was travelling at impact; with that in mind, the big circles make a bit more sense.
The CAA, who issue the NOTAMs, tend to build in the best safety margin they can into the NOTAM area, which is not always circular. AIUI, a NOTAM that does not specifically prohibit flying is fine for you to fly in, but like a yellow area you need to be aware of increased risk and make your own judgement call. I personally would not want to be flying my drone anywhere near the Red Arrows; they go low and they go much too fast for me to get out of the way. And they displace a lot of air, resulting in turbulence.
Same goes for the Mach Loop; there is no prohibition on drone flying there, just notices in the car parks requesting you not to when the fast jets are in action. If something weighing several tons is coing to come around a corner a corner in the geography a few hundred yards away at 600mph and will be over me before I can react to hearing it, and even if it misses Mr Drone will leave all sorts of hot exhaust and turbulence in it’s wake, then, again, I don’t care how spectacular the footage might have been, I’m not flying him near it. I have grown to like Mr Drone, and would not want to risk him.
Mach Loop has a timetable for when the low-fly training is to take place, but the RAF have permission to fly at low levels at any time they want in the area, and may appear as unexpectedly as the Spanish Inquisition, only at not far off the speed of sound and from very close by. As the CAA describe a sub-250g drone with a camera as an aircraft not a toy, and describe the person flying it as it’s pilot, this means that the flyer must behave as a pilot, responsible for the safe flying of the drone and any consequences of his/her decisions as captain of the ship. Don’t think you’re allowed to marry people, though…
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Wow, that is a very informative response. Very interesting and lots of very useful info, so thank you very much ! I shall fly with caution … but not today!
Hi, you will find that in highly restricted areas the geofencing will lock you out and request a code. If you aren’t in a NFZ then you should tap on the location on the map and observe the notes and instructions.
Not anymore DJI removed the them
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Ahh, someone hasn’t updated their Flysafe Database , have they ? 
Thanks for the info, I wasn’t aware. I tried to carry out a roof survey near Birmingham airport, I was just inside the extreme boarder but it would not allow me to take off or even accept the code, this was about 3 or weeks ago. I had to abort the survey.
What were Birmingham ATC like to deal with @Airwolf-1 ?