A friend of mine is the site / grounds keeper at a gated estate in Surrey. I mentioned that I ocassionaly fly a Mavic Air 2 and he told me how much it costs the estate to put scafollding up, simply to do roof inspections. a small fortune.
His next move is to approach a proper, licensed local company to do roof/chimney/flaunching inspections with the use of a drone but he asked what the law says about the estate purchasing a drone for this purpose and only using it on their private land, with necessary precautions.
I responded that I would try and find out and suggested that, whatever the law states about such use on private land, whoever operates the drone should at least get a Flyer and Operator ID, plus insurance.
What would the CAA’s position be for such private use on private land for no monetary gain? Anyone have any advice? I suspect the management company might have some thoughts on it too.
Check the rules at the forum’s own Good to Go site
Or get a Mini 2 (or Mini 3 when it’s announced).
I don’t think the CAA have a position now on commercial flights, it’s more about where the rules allow you to fly it. As long as the necessary insurance is in place, you’re good to go.
If you’ve got permission to fly there, there should be no reason why you can’t get into the air.
Because the drone wouldn’t be used for a recreational use, you wouldn’t be able to take advantage of the BMFA or FPVUK Article 16, as they are specifically for that sort of flight, so normal CAA Drone regs would come into play (distance from others etc). You’d also need insurance as the BMFA and FPVUK insurance doesn’t cover commercial use.
You might want to consider gaining the GVC qualification with it’s associated Operational Authorisation, then you can complete a Risk Assessment/flight plan of the area, get insurance and you can do basically anything that the RA covers.
I think what you are actually asking is can your friend buy a drone and fly on private land to do the job. The straight answer is yes. He will still need to get a flyer ID etc but as ling as he maintains the correct distances if he is close to the boundary of the estate then he can he can do his own inspections.
What the others have said … the distinction between commercial and non-commercial flights has gone (other than non-recreational flights needing specific insurance)
Rather than go the GVC, Operational Authorisation route, I’d get a sub 250g drone which releases you from any separation distances.
In contrast the PDRA01 Operational Authorisation will limit you to a 50m bubble around uninvolved people - only benefit is you can fly any UAV up to 25kg.
