Not sure that the polis / CAA are a useful approach . @rayand you say the footage was to be found on social media, perhaps friendly engagement to point out to the pilot that the flight was unsafe and inappropriate would in the long-run be more beneficial . As it is the time of two gubbermint agencies was wasted and the ignorance of the flyer remained.
I have no experience of the Met , but know the Ayrshire polis seem to have a wide range of response to drones, a farmer who sells me logs had his Air 2 ( no operator ID ) confiscated for a couple of hours for flying far too close to folk at a festival in Ayr - footage somewhere on Utube , he now knows better. On the other hand there is their response to @Windswept which makes more sense after his post aboot the ranger.
Thanks for all the ideas / suggestions / references.
Here are some answers / datapoints.
(1) I am cautious about retweeting a post - having seen the potential consequences if the post turns out to be disliked by the authorities.
(2) The crowd that the drone was flying over / surveiling was a very densely packed (rammed) into a street. Here is a screen capture as the drone descended down towards the crowd/demo. It that an āassemblyā? I guess thats the key factor - assuming the drone is <250g and in LOS.
(3) The report contained a link to the footage (and I downloaded a copy - although it is still there)
(4) The report included the apparent name of the operator/pilot (from social media account)
(5) I did not see the operator. I donāt know if a prosecution requires a witness to see the alleged infringing drone to fly to an operator and then see that they are controlling it (woudl be hard)
(6) I donāt plan to āchaseā the police, but it would be nice to learn if they consider flying a drone of unknown mass at low level over a densely packed crowd in the middle of London is āOKā or as the CAA seemed to think, aparrently āCriminalā.
(7) I will leave it there - but give an update on this thread if anything happens.
(8) Thanks āWindsweptā for your interesting story!
No, you canāt fly a sub-250g drone over anything like that. Not sure what the difference between a crowd and an assembly is, probably that an assembly is a crowd with a common purpose, usually seditious.
Rules apply to sub-250g drones. The Drone Code applies, the 400ā rule applies, the VLOS rule applies, the āno droppingā rule applies. You can fly close to buildings unless they are in FRZs like prisons (which are where most illegal drone activity takes place!) and over people at a distance that does not bother them, but deffo and specifically not crowds.
I regard busy shopping streets and pub/clubby areas as crowded, and wonāt fly them normally. If the weather is suitable xmas day I am going to fly Cardiff town centre, which will be deserted with tumbleweed blowing through, should be safe enough once Iām above the xmas lights. I have been cycling around the centre on previous xmas days, brilliant, you can hoon about to your heartās content!
My one and only interaction with them about drones was prompted by a pretty poor bit of comms from one office but ended on a fairly positive note with another. As you say, a wide range depending who you talk to.
It depends if or what resources were put into it. Did you report it via the Met website on the ā report a crime, incident or suspicion ā webpage? If so you would have been issued a reference numberā¦ How did you make contact to request a progress report?
Question: Would you feel inclined to report it if it HAD been the police.
Is it somehow inherently safe for someone in a uniform to be flying as opposed to a member of the public?
No.
Bad drone ops give us all a bad name, i get that.
Personally, i wouldnāt expect to hear any more from them tbh, the police do not tend to investigate crimes these days - especially those of a lower level.
All of this actually brings a more serious question into the mix. Should we be policing other peopleās drone activities? Iāve come accross a few other droners that quite clearly didnāt have a clue. What I have done on each ocasion is start off with a chat, give them a GADC card and tell them to get in touch with any questions. A couple have appeared in here and accepted the wisdom contained within, most havenāt. But at least I tried. Would I report anyone? Well, I truely believe in one of our rules āWe are not the drone policeā It is, quite simply, not my job to police other people. I might make suggestions, offer guidance and advice. But we are not here to judge. I may do some things others wonāt, they may do some things I wonāt, my criteria are:
Did anyone get hurt
did anyone die
did any property get destroyed
If no is the answer to the above then crack on.
Question: Did you contact the operator at any point to open up a debate or discussion?
I agree; it is not our job to police other droners. Those who are misbehaving are unlikely to respond positively to such interference in any case. It is the job of the police, on behalf of the CAA, to police other droners, and the issue highlighted here is that they canāt be arsed to do it. They certainly wonāt do it off their own bats and while it is their duty to respond to complaints, clearly this incident shows that they donāt do that much either.
Is it our job to educate other droners? Debatable; in my own case Iād be reluctant to do this if only because I am not exactly an experienced flyer myself. But I am a droner, and bad behaviour reflects, and impacts, on me, so I certainly would want to discourage it as much as I realistically can!
I am by nature an law-abider. I believe strongly in capital S society as collectively beneficial to itās members, and obeying laws is part of that belief. I see people flouting the law every day, of course, that is par for the course in the inner-city area I live in, and you can see motorists and cyclists doing this on any busy road as well. I choose not to and hope that my example will, over time, persuade others, but in the 72 years Iāve been knocking around the 3rd rock from the sun Iāve seen no evidence of this ever happening. So I regard it as just another frustrating part of life.
Should we be grassing miscreant droners up? Part of living in a deprived inner-cite area is conforming to a general culture that the police are the enemy and that grasses are likely to be taken around the back and have the error of their ways explained to them. With fists. So, by and large, I mind my own business and donāt get involved.
This is where the perceived severity of the offence comes into play. I see someone flying a drone clearly beyond his/her VLOS, or clearly over the height limit, or flying packets over the jail walls, Iām mostly going to shrug my shoulders and feel smugly superior to the scofflaw. I see someone flying close to the school changing-room windows, or buzzing people, or disturbing nesting birds for the āfunā of it, Iām probably not going to accost them because Iāll only be told to fuck off and mind my own if not worse. But Iām quite likely in such circumstances to call 101, not that Iād expect anything to be done about it!
