Personally, I’m pleased to see action being taken
Issued a warning?
Seems that the police are just not taking this seriously. Their second warning! Just how many do you get?!!!
He’s a policeman
Different pilot. If you find him on LinkedIn it’s a bit clearer
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On a different tangent but similar, how come they let any mum or dad teach a youngster to drive.
More risky than a drone I’d say.
Or… If you’ve invested time and money to get qualified to meet legislation, why should any pilot that hasn’t done so be able to take work from me?
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Thanks Lee, seen that now 
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how come they let any mum or dad teach a youngster to drive.
Mum and Dad have passed their test is the main reason.
It’s more about the fact that the PfCO isn’t about teaching how to fly the drone, it’s about teaching you how to plan and fly (or not fly) a drone operation, covering all of the safety requirements that are currently deemed important. The flight assessment is a separate part and can be done separately to the class based work that leads to the exam.
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Totally agree.
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July next year the reason for the flight won’t matter commercial or not… unless my understanding of the legislation is flawed. So imho this is just a waste of police time and money
Unfortunately for the person who has had the warning, the law applies now, and the procedures have to applied and followed now, until it changes…next July…or not if they change their minds.
It is true that if the CAA / UK Govt to follow the new EU rules then the
Requirement for commercial aspect may become irrelevant.
However, the new rules would most likely mean that, without the new equivalent of a PfCO, a person would not be able to fly a drone over 900g over people / built up areas so could bring greater restrictions without the PfCO equivalent!
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I imagine there’s a room full of engineers right now working to shave enough weight off the Mavic 3 to get it down to 899g.
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Just buy a Dremel … you can shave your own bits (
as they say!!)
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Just a hypothetical. If I want to film a friends wedding as a gift to them, is that classed as commercial? No monies involved.
You’re not going to be able to get close enough to them or the building and stay within the drone code as a hobbyist (I believe)
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As long as he doesn’t buy you so much as a drink in return (and you’re not the wedding photographer) then in theory it’s fine. However, with what the law says about distances from people and structures under your control you’re going to be at least 50 metres away from them, the church and any other building. In my experience, the number of people just milling about at weddings makes any form of control tough. From a planning POV you’d need:
A coned off take off point at least 30 metres away
A secondary landing site should some guests come wandering over
Permission from every property within 50 metres of you
And that’s before trees, powerlines, NFZs etc.
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You type quicker than me 
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That’s pretty much guaranteed as DJI have been directly involved in the development of the new EU rules 
And I think is safe to expect that they are working on a new version of the spark so the weight is reduced from 300g to 250g and it’s pretty much exempt from all the drone rules apart from flying in a FRZ!
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