Hi All,
Not sure if this has been discussed in prior posts but could not see any.
Many like to put a strobe ontop of drones to let possible pilots of planes, helicopters know a drone is below. I think it is a good idea as I like evening flights.
Now with a sub 250g drone this can be flown in public areas due to weight, If I wanted to take the safety level up which is better for aircraft above and place a strobe on my mini 4 pro it would take it just over the 250g… With slight extra safety weight on drone, would this then disallow me to fly in public as could possibly take drone weight to maybe 255/260g
It is just something I have thought about as being a careful pilot following rules?
Rich
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I think, following the word of the law, adding weight to a 249g drone means that it cannot benefit from the relaxed rules for these small drones.
I believe that if you take the A2 C of C qualification, that effectively restores the majority of benefits of the smaller drones.
There is an offer on here somewhere to get the A2 C of C for £49 I think.
Worth investigating more 
Have a look at:
That will answer most questions:)
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I put a Skytron Strobon 3w cree strobe on my Mini 2 SE, which took it to exactly 250g, 246g drone + 4g light. I doubt very much that a light that took your drone to 251g would cause much problem, but better safe than sorry especially if it came to litigation!
I mounted the light underneath one of the motors, port rear, where the light wouldn’t interfere with the pbotography, but the purpose was not to inform other aircraft higher than me of my presence but to enable me to more easily locate the drone at range, especially in golden hour/dusk lighting, after glancing at the screen.
There are several retrofit accessories that are likely to take the drone appreciably over the 250g mark, though, such as landing gear and cargo release systems, the latter being probably illegal anyway (you are not supposed to drop things from your drone, it’s not a B52). TTBOMK there has not yet been a test case over this issue, but I suspect the CAA would state that if the weight of the drone with all the accessories fitted is over 250g, it needs to be considered as an ‘over 250g drone’ with the neccessary requirments for pilot qualification and the associated 50m from Joe Public flying rules, if you asked them.
There will be many people who will carry on regardless; I am sure most cheapo Temu drone pilots for example don’t even register with the CAA and would claim if they were challenged on the matter that they were unaware that they had to, and some of them would be telling the truth! I for one am not in the business of interrupting weddings to tell the drone pilot that he’s overweight and shouldn’t be dropping roses on the bride, but would prefer not to engage in such activities myself, and it sounds like you are of the same view…
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Budgie snuck in while I was typing, and may well be offering better advice!
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Even if they did see your light, what action would you be expecting them to take while they’re travelling at 140mph? 
Strobes are for you to see your drone, not for other airspace users to see your drone.
If your drone is over 249g then the +249g regulations would obviously apply, there are no grey areas around this.
Your drone is either sub 250g or it isn’t.
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Thank you everyone for great replies and very helpful indeed. Seems with these replies its a “Yes” and would be classed as a higher qualification with no flying in public
Just remember no one carries calibrated scales, and no one to my knowledge has ever been questioned about the weight of their drone.
Would a few more grams make any difference 
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I did my online test when it first came into force and at the time did not have Mini 3 Pro or Mini 4 Pro.
It says on my documents that Im A1 & A3 Open Category… Does this make things better for me?
Yes, I’d say it does. It means you can fly anywhere you want to, close up to buildings, over people, up to 400’, just not over crowds and in line with the requirments of the CAA Drone Code. Which is basically, don’t be a dick, have a bit of sensitivity and commons sense about privacy, TOAL on private land, nuiscance, SSSI’s, and NOTAMs.
A2 category can use bigger drones, and bigger drones can do things smaller ones can’t, particularly when it comes to bad weather and carrying sophisticated cameras and gimbals, but they must be kept 50m away from anyone not directly involved in the flying of the drone, and 50m away from buildings unless the building is higher than 50m, in which case they must be kept a lateral distance equivalent to the height of the building away. Swings and roundabouts, but I am quite happy flying and filming in the sub-250g category! I took the CAA test for cat A2, and have both an operator and flyer ID, but have little interest in a bigger drone.
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Go and fly your drone mate. Have fun and don’t worry you won’t kill anyone, unlike driving a car 
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… and the chances are you’ve broken a speed limit a few times in recent weeks by a higher percentage than the weight excess will be.
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I been thinking abiut a strobe to my mini 4k
I am going to weight it first. Then design a strobe to keep it under weight if i can
You might be ok, the Mini 4K weighs 242g out of the box so you’ll have a bit of room to play with.
Yeah thats what i weighed my at aswell gives a bit of leeway
The test for A2 is the A2 CofC which, and you’ll have to correct me here, I don’t think you have. A3 covers up to 25kg, the A2 CofC lets you fly closer to residential/commercial areas.
Check out this helpful chart
https://www.caa.co.uk/publication/download/18223
Which is taken from this page.
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Which takes you into the A2/A3 category, the CAA specifies the distinctions “250g or more” and “under 250g”.
I’d try recalibrating your scales until you’re 249.99g
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I believe if you are a member of one of 4 clubs recognised by the CAA, you can fly, under article 16 permissions, drones up to 25kg in the A3 open category. No commercial flights are allowed. That should answer the weight question. There are other restrictions which you would be advised to research, but they are minimal.
Watch this. Much better than my explanation.
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