Hi all,

I've seen this question before, but i'm not sure what to believe.. I'm ready to head out to Italy. On my way i'll be driving through Austria. A superb country for some nice shots eh? Drones heavier than 300 grams are bound to have a license. The specs say that the Spark weighs 300 grams. So no license needed? Just te be sure..

Some Austrian out there for a quick answer?

Thanks in advance!

Austrian drone regulations are incredibly strict. You need permission from Austro Control if your drone will have more than 79 Joules of kinetic/potential energy. A Spark drone, 300 grams, hovering at 30 meters will have 88 Joules of gravitational potential energy and thus cannot fly that high. The highest you would be allowed to fly is 26 meters at which point the drone would have a potential energy of 76.5 Joules. If you were flying at (say) 10 km/h this would add an additional 1.4 Joules and you'd still stay under the limit. However, throw the thing in sport mode (14 m/s) and the "bonus" increases to 29 Joules (so you'd have to lower the altitude to max. 17 meters to stay within the 79 Joule limit).

Wow! How would they police that? Measure weight, height and velocity of each drone seen flying?

Thanks @TomZ. Very strict indeed. Hmm just some quick shots then. No moving

Shave some of the plastic off and it will be under 300 grams LOL..