They were working with the EASA during release of Mavic 2.
When asked about the 907g mass, the answer was it will need to be flown in the next category.
I’d like to think they would make slightly lighter battery pack to get it under 900g but have a feeling they will just release an upgraded M2.
Germany has an airport with the IATA code “FRZ” (Fritzlar Air Base - German Army).
That will definitely be a no-fly-drone-zone! 
Platinum 
Platinum is too heavy …. Oh! Yeah.
Were they given a warning too? 
Agree with uou Lee no PfCO no commercial work thats the law and anyone flawnting it should face the consequences. Want to do commercial work then take your PfCO…
Is it commercial work? (Are the images and video on sale commercially) or are they just investigating a breach of the drone code/ANO.
Agree, No PFCO, no commercial flying.
This might change next year when the ridiculous distinction between PFCO and hobby flyer is removed and we ALL become drone pilots and have responsibilities for safe flying
It’s not ridiculous in my view. If you book someone to do some video work on a listed building like I did last week, you’ll want to know if that person has passed some form of course or just picked up their first drone from Jessops an hour ago. You want to know that your pilot has cleared everything with local ATC if applicable and is properly insured, that they’ve planned the op and briefed anyone you have on site. “Commercial” isn’t just selling that nice photo you took.
I’ve not seen anything in the proposed European legislation (which may not come in at all after October) that suggests a removal of a commercial licence/permission. It’ll level the playing field in terms of distances whilst making really lightweight drones largely free to fly anywhere and so on, but it doesn’t say that commercial work permissions will be abandoned. When have you ever known a government deregulate something and abolish the fees PfCO holders pay?
I come back to the minibus example. I can hire one today and drive me and my mates wherever we need to go. If I want to charge them or drive it for a living I need a different licence. Same vehicle, same road, same limits, only one is for commercial use and one isn’t.
I’ll be happy when hobby pilots (which is me most of the time I fly) can sell landscape images without anything other than a registration, it makes sense. I just feel there will still need to be a distinction for other work.
As a private pilot I had to fly Vfr ( visual flight rules) I was not allowed to fly for profit or reward but was able to claim expenses, I had expensive tastes at times, I’m quite good when it’s on expenses 
So why can’t you claim expenses for using your drone, like the case of the guy who asked if anyone could help find his drone , not for profit or reward but ,cost of fuel to get there and back, your lunch, cost of any expendable etc; etc; 
Just saying!
I imagine you’d been well trained first though
The CAA cover themselves on that - any reward, including lunch - makes it commercial.
It ain’t perfect but it’s what we’ve got. As these things get more and more accessible and more get in the air (including autonomous ones) the requirements on professional operators will only increase
Sorry! but it seems more and more to be this with regs for everything these days.
https://youtu.be/WZEJ4OJTgg8
I stand by what I said. My last job involved being hired by a third party to work on their clients property. Nobody is going to put the reputation of their own business in the hands of a potentially unprepared, uninsured, unplanned and inexperienced pilot.
I agree entirely with you about your point of having a PFCO, my point is the system needs updating and hopefully will be soon.
I can’t go out and buy/hire a car, or minibus insure it etc without a licence, yet I can go out and buy a drone without any form of instruction or proof that I can fly.
That’s what I mean by the ridiculous PFCO, I can fly over the same buildings as a PCFO holder, taking into account the ANO, having just come out of jessops. Only if I want to sell my photos or act as a business then I have to have a PCFO to prove I can fly safely, with all the planning that entails. (and where organisations smell money, they want a slice). If I’d undertaken the flight without any intention of selling the photos and someone later wanted to buy them, I could legally sell them, having come straight from jessops!! It just seems to be penalising businesses with red tape. The playing field doesn’t seem very level in that respect. That’s what I meant by the ridiculous PCFO. It’s not perfect but it’s what we have.
I understand where your coming from on this Lee, but in my line of work I had been doing things for more than 20 years ( trained) I was also teaching apprentices and then one day I’m told I cannot do that job anymore because I’m not registered to do it !! WTF?? Six certificates later and I resume what I’ve always done except now it’s costing me £££ every year to do it, yet still the same insurance, same skill level and same safety measures.
So my bitterness of the system goes deep.
So after that rant yes I’m thinking of doing the pfco just to keep the hounds off my back and after all ‘from a personal point’ it’s covering your ass.
After all what danger is a m2p against a 12 ton piece of machinery 200ft up in a town centre. 
Agree %100 the whole system is geared to rob people as much as possible,jobsworths,the lot of em…
And at the end of the day the PFCO is bit of paper that someone got for a grand and a weeks work.
I worked in an industry that got ripped apart by every man and his dog been able to get hold of cheap technology, and this is going to go the same way.
PFCO, not ideal, but it’s all we have.
I’ve turned down lots of opportunities to work, and am amazed by the (sometimes large) companies that do not even know I’d need certification to comply.
I agree. We had an electric train stood near Heck, (Yorkshire)because the Pantograph fell off and the pantograph arm was stood up fouling the overhead electrics, meaning the train with 600 people couldn’t be moved The overhead line team arrived and I asked them to go onto the roof and lower the arm to allow the train to be towed forward to York.
‘Can’t do that anymore’ they replied ‘Cos we don’t have a piece of paper showing we are competent and there’s no an actual competency course to get the piece of paper, AND those in power have taken away our wooden ladder to ensure we can’t do our job!! Bearing in mind that there’s more than 80 years experience of doing this between the 3 man team.
So we had to wait for a train fitter to arrive from Doncaster…then the real farce began…
The fitter doesn’t carry a ladder, the overhead line team normally provide the ladder!!! So another team had to come from Knottingley with a ladder…they brought a step ladder, which just about reached the top of the train wheels, never mind the roof!!!
Another ladder was called for, a different team brought an extension ladder…made of metal. Now 25,000 volts can jump 9 feet if you get near it with anything conductive…soooo I had to arrange for the overhead electrics to be turned off and earthed, this meant that no electric trains could run on any lines…
THEN… the fitter said he can’t go onto the roof without a safety harness, but he was too fat for the harness that was supplied.
Had to send for a bigger one, but they were out of stock of the extra large size.
In the end we took the common sense approach, reasoning that thousands of people stuck on trains and at risk of forcing the doors to “self evacuate” was a risk too far, onto a very dangerous environment outweighed the piece of paper.
I know we’ve covered this in some detail but here is a scenario that I now find myself in.
Took the wife out to our local country pub for lunch, we know and get on with the licencee quite well, it’s a beautiful setting and whilst sat outside having lunch I asked him if when we came again could I launch my drone to take a few pictures of our local and put them on Facebook as it’s a hobby of mine and he may have seen others I’d taken, ( ok so far so good )
Yep any time you like he says, I’ll pay you for taking them,( uh oh ) now a little alarm bell is ringing in my head.
I tell him I am a hobbyist only and not pfco registered so I cannot accept payment, to which his reply was well that’s between us!
Right so my intention was to take pics and put them on my page ( legal yes )
He is insisting if I do he will ( buy them for want of a better word) ( legal/not legal)
But I want desperately to get those shots but if I do he’s likely to not charge me for my next meal.( profit or reward?)
My intention before the flight was not to sell them.
Need input guys?!?
The intention before flight is commercial as before you’ve taken off you’ve been told you’ll be paid/compensated.
Ultimately it’s up to you I guess. My view will always be slightly different as this is how I generate a side income and there’s a risk that the price now gets established at £20 rather than the couple of hundred it should be. The honest answer is it would be illegal as proposed. If you were to gift it to him and got nothing in exchange then you’d be fine.
