good idea to check local council website before you fly. went to weston-super-mare today to see some freinds running blo carts and traction kites. the area they use is at Uphill which is a dedicated wind vehicle area on the Brean end of the beach. put the mavic up wind was strong had to run in sport mode to gain headway up towards weston. gave up after about 20 mins as it was too flipping cold.i had a vist from the beach rangers who stated that the council an CAA had banned the use of uav/ drone on all of its land private or publicand that you had to get permission from them the launch and fly. this had to be supproted by insurance paperwork public liability of £5 mil and CAA pilots licence. the beach rangers were really good in their approach to me and were responsive to what i said about CAA regs but they do need to understand the drone regs a little better.
I wasnt aware that the CAA had banned the use of drones anywhere
The CAA most certainly has NOT banned the use of drones anywhere. This excuse by the beach rangers sounds, at the very least, like a vast embellishment of the possible truth. The council may have placed bye-laws re drone use in certain areas that they own but to require a full CAA PfCO to fly recreationally is absurd. I would contact the relevant council and speak to someone who knows what they are talking about.
@BCF yeah what they said didnt ring quite true but we had excactly the same issue many years ago when we started flying power kites down there. it was a long hard struggle to get them to understand and play ball with us many meetings with the council and rules being laid down for club members such as membership and liaility insurance ect . may be worth trying to find and insurere that would take us on as a club so we would end up with a membership that included liability insurance as well. thats what we did with SWATK kite club.
Interesting story there Jon, seems some people are destined to try and spoil our fun.
Good to know 
I’ve read some right horror stories 
yep we had excactly the same issue with them and the council with power kites when we first started to fly them down there. i think its their ignorance of what they can be used for and a lackof understanding of the enjoymentuev’s bring to people
Have you thought about joining or are you a member of BMFA? Comes with insurance and the support of a team of people who can help talk to the council. Also the achievement scheme, rulebook etc might help convince them you are responsible?
@frogbmth no im not i havent looked at any form of meberrship yet. still trying to find some reasonable kind oof insurance that will cover accidendtel damaged and loss. pennies are a bit tight at the mo. will will deffo look into BMFA as it sounds like a good sopport net work to have. thanks for the heads up:grinning:
I got accidental damage cover from Photoguard, I think it was something like £27 for the year? Doesn’t cover me for loss though, only accidental damage, so I just have to try really hard not to ditch it in the sea!
Do you think that getterback thing would be visible in the sea? I would be more than happy to swim out to recover my drone if it plonked into the sea, but would need to be able to see it easily. I can imagine at even just 100m out it might be hard to spot it bobbing on the surface. Anybody got one?