Hmmm simple appointment ? I wanted to go stateside many years ago and because of a conviction, years before ( young and foolish) they wanted me to make an appointment at Grosvenor Square. Wanted me to pay for the appointment, but couldn’t actually guarantee the appointment on the day ( had to turn up and queue. If they managed to see me by the end of the day, alls well, if not , make another appointment ) I gave up on the idea of a day spent waiting there. So it’s not a “simple appointment “ system. ( or at least it wasn’t way back then )
I know all about those days where folk had to queue up outside the entrance in Upper Grosvenor Street. It was a rather chaotic system indeed but now days you can proceed with the application online and it will sort the interview date out for you as well.
What seems bloody strange to me, is …
- the headline cites “flying too high”
The article mentions …
- “altered a drone to fly higher than it should”
- “prosecution said Godwin used settings on the drone which failed to comply with English regulations.”.
… but nowhere does it mention the height that was flown that broke the law or actually say, within the body of the article, that “flying too high” was the offence.
The only “offence” supported by the article was flying BVLOS … “the drone had been up to three miles away from him”.
What is actually the most worrying aspect of this is that the article strongly suggests that it is an offence to have settings that enable a drone to fly too high.
Where has this “offence” been added to the legislation?
By intimation, when do drivers of a car capable of exceeding 70MPH have to start to worry?
"He said there was no suggestion a helicopter was there … "
Whether any other airspace user was in the area when the offences were committed is neither here nor there. Motorways are fairly empty at night time, but I wouldn’t dream of going along at 100mph just because there was no traffic about.
Don’t forget, all flight info is stored on the controller anyway and I’m sure this would have been downloaded and looked at after his drone had been seized. The long distance flight ( over 3 miles from the operator) too would be recorded .
But you do have a car that’s capable of breaking the national speed limit? If so, by corollary, that would be an offence … even if you didn’t break any speed limits.
You do realise why we have cars that are capable of travelling at that speed though ?
That has nothing to do with the point.
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Im sure cars are absolutely nothing to do with breaking the ANO, CAA and Ofcom rules
Is there a law that say your drone’s settings must be set to restrict your drone to be incapable of exceeding heights/ranges stated in ANO, CAA legislation?
Absolutely not!
But by the wording of the article that was the argument of the prosecution as an offence.
You know these reporters use language to entice the reader though. They’ll write what the reader expects to hear, not what was actually said. But here in the U.K. and Europe, there is no actual setting on the controller to override CE mode for radio transmission. So he was also charged with a breach of Ofcom regs pertaining to that. VLOS and height rules are there for a reason.
I wonder if there’s a way to access the court records to see what reasons the prosecution gave ?
Totally agree with what your saying ( if I’ve read the above correct ) & the point I think you are making in comparison with the 70 mph speed limit in the uk, meaning most cars today are well capable of exceeding that speed limit & some, but it is not an offence to have that power under the bonnet, no driver should have to worry so to speak otherwise maybe cars etc would be restricted for safety etc,
The same as it’s not an offence to have those height parameters within the drone / app if DJI be it set those limitations to the max height one can set them to, but does not mean they will go over what the caa has set out in the rules, but obviously an offence to fly over the max height of 120 m or 400 foot as suppose to a driver speeding over 70 mph.
The way I see it, there are some drone operators who can be allowed to fly much higher than 120m. (Just ask Graham Degg ) therefore it follows that drone manufacturers don’t set hard limits on height. Also you are allowed to fly over an obstacle higher than 120m, with the owners permission. ( it does say so in the rules)
Who the hell is Graham Degg
So what we asking him
Why drone manufacturers don’t limit their drones to 120m/ 400ft. I mean, it would be easy for DJI to put an update out restricting the drone to 120m and to limit distance to say 500m max ( or lower) That would keep the likes of the CAA / EASA / FAA very happy , wouldn’t it ?
Blimey the Hythe Pier in Hampshire is longer than 500m. Might as well bin the hobby with the distance restriction like that.
Well, you could fly beyond that, as long as you have VLOS and know the orientation of your drone at all times ( without looking at the controller screen ) I think if you have 20/20 vision, you might be able to pull that one off