Hi guys, just came back from Turkey. I've travelled from Moscow to Antalya with my Mavic Pro by Turkish airlines.
And of course, I've read all the posts above, before the drone had been taken to its first journey.

So  the good news are that there were absolutely no questions regarding the drone while passing the security check. Neither in Moscow, nor in Turkey. Oh, yes, I've took it to the cabin. Decided not to put it into the baggage and was right. Airport officers didn't even asked me about equipment I had in my bag. No one carried. Seems that Mavic is too small to interest Airport security officers.
BTW, at the same time another guy passed the security check with his Phantom. Security officer gave him a couple of questions about his drone. The dialog was like:
- What do you have in your bag? Is it a drone?
- Yes, it is a drone.
- Why do you have it?
- Because i would like to take some captures of nature during my trip.
- Ok, so you better be careful.

That's it. No one would like to take your drone away. You will not left it at the border. Here is the Tip for you fellows. If security officer would like to know how good are you at Turkish drone law, simply say that you've read it. If during your stay in Turkey someone would ask you if you know that to operate the drone you need to register it - say that it is only possible for those who has a turkish citizenship and you are not going to fly any more. They don't need your drone to stay in Turkey. Sometime security officer just would like to check how confident you are.

Here is my best practices I've learnt during the trip. Happy to share with you:
1. Fly in the morning or deep evening when there are not a lot of people,
2. Avoid flying over the crowded places: less people you have around - better for you.
3. Have a visual contact with your drone
Follow this easy rules and you will avoid any problems and will have a great shots and videos. Turkish nature is definitely worth been captured.
Good luck and all the best!

Yesterday I had e-mail conversation with "Directorate General of Civil Aviation" in Turkey.
Final message from them was: "...must inform you that only Turkish citizens can able to carry out and fulfill this requirments. Because of this, I suggest that you do not take your drone while coming here. If you take it, customs will seize your drone, and you will take it while returning your home."

By requirements they mean drone registration. So, if someone of you will travel to Turkey, be aware about drone confiscation at customs. At least "Directorate General of Civil Aviation" saying so...

P.S. Conversation was about DJI Mavic.

fans76c2eec1 Posted at 2018-1-8 23:40
Yesterday I had e-mail conversation with "Directorate General of Civil Aviation" in Turkey.
Final message from them was: "...must inform you that only Turkish citizens can able to carry out and fulfill this requirments. Because of this, I suggest that you do not take your drone while coming here. If you take it, customs will seize your drone, and you will take it while returning your home."

Got the same answer today

Question. To fly or not to fly?

someone who has recent experience?

I subscribe to this question too.

Turkey only for citizens (as of April 2018). Registration required _BOTH_ for pilots and for drones over 500g. Foreigners/tourists can not fly anything (ever Spark or Mavic Air, which are under 500g). Here's a response from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (http://web.shgm.gov.tr/en):  "In order to fly your drone in Turkey, you have to register your drone and yourself in our reg.system. It is not required to register your drone since the MTOW is under 500 gr. But as a pilot you have to reg. Yourself. But fort he time being foreign people can’t register him/herself. Because reg.system connects to Ministry of Internal Affairs system to verify the citizen number. If you have not Turkish citizen number, you can’t do that."

polaturkey@gmai Posted at 2016-6-23 09:37
Hi, I live in Turkey/Istanbul, and have 2 drones.(tarot 650fy + p4) Both of them are registered but nobody asked anything so far. Just be careful with "no fly zone",  keep away from people and animals. I mean, use our general rules just like in every flying. There won't be anything bad.  Safe flights!

Hi how did you register your drone in istanbul please ?

Hi guys, ive read your post abt drones in turkey .i was flying my drone in greece ,oia, before one of the greek was being anal about my drone. That aside. I arrived in turkey wirh my drone on hand carry. No one checked. Maybe i was lucky. I went to google the turkish law on drone. It states. Any drone above 500grams had to be registered. I was lucky enough that my mavic air only weighed at 460-480grams.  Well that was stated at the website. Anws it also mentioned if its for entertainment purposes its allowed. They even linked a youtube video of someone using the drone capturing the blue mosque and its other wonders. So fly away boysss

Hi All,

Im off to Turkey tomorrow to visit a turkish friend. He spoke to a friend who was a policeman. He confirmed we CANNOT fly drones in Turkey. Apparently each time you wish to fly a drone you need to inform the authorities and you need to be a Turkish citizen to buy / fly them. So sadly, Im leaving my Mavic at home

James.

I thought I'd share my recent drone experience in Turkey, I returned to the UK last weekend.

I took my Mavic Air, controller and a spare battery in my hand luggage (backpack) and flew to Antalya, we then stayed at an all inclusive resort near the town of Side.

This was the 4th time I've taken the drone through Stansted and again had no problems at all.

When we arrived in Antalya there were no baggage checks at all and to be honest the airport seemed to be struggling with the volume of tourists coming through. There were random checks set up on the way out of the airport but I did not get stopped.

During our stay I flew the drone about 7-8 times from the beach in the resort. I tried to observe basic drone etiquette and not bother anyone I didn't need to. All but 2 of the flights were early in the morning, flying between 07:30 and 08:30 - most of the flight was over the water, pier and beach and there wasn't many people around. I flew over the hotel and local area once or twice but at a altitude of 300 feet so as not to cause any bother for anyone.

The other 2 times I flew, once was during sunset from the beach, again not very crowded. The other time was from the beach at around 6PM, it was fairly quite and I only flew it about 5 minutes as I wansted to get a zoom-out shot of the family waving from the beach.

Nobody seemed bothered at all by the drone or me flying it, most people pointed and tried to watch as it whizzed off into the distance. A few people came up to me to ask questions like what drone is it? How high does it fly? I think they were locals quite amazed by it.

On the way back the drone made it through 2 scanner checks at the airport and then I was randomly selected for a thorough search at the gate (something to do with a requirement from the British government). The guy conducting the search pulled it out and even took it out of its case but he didn't ask me any questions, he just swabbed it to make sure I hadn't been using drugs. He also swabbed the spare battery but didn't ask me any questions about it. I came back to the UK with some great video and photos of the beach area.

I didn't take it out of the hotel complex even though we did spend a few days at local towns and markets, I guess I was a little nervous about flying it out and about. However, I suspect that if I had of flown it from a quiet area and not bothered anyone then nobody would have bothered me. You never know though so please take it as a green light to do so, just documenting my experience.

Hope that gives you a flavour of what to expect.

theMattW Posted at 2018-5-26 03:58
I thought I'd share my recent drone experience in Turkey, I returned to the UK last weekend.

I took my Mavic Air, controller and a spare battery in my hand luggage (backpack) and flew to Antalya, we then stayed at an all inclusive resort near the town of Side.

You were Super Lucky!
Antalyia Airport is WAAAAAAAY different than Istanbul..
Hope the luck stays by your side

Geebax Posted at 2017-7-13 15:41
'You cannot keep the bags in the hold below the plane as it is unpressurized and could cause a fire due to the stresses on the battery.'

The cargo hold on all aircraft is pressurized, so that is not true. The main reason they wont carry batteries in the cargo hold is because there is no way to deal with a fire in the hold if it happens.

Exactly.

Nigel

hello, as a foreigner resident in turkey, I can share my experience.

I purchased my mavic pro abroad and imported in Turkey during my travel a while ago. in my luggage. no questions asked.

in order to comply with regulations, even to fly just for recreational purposes, you need your drone registered online (https://iha.shgm.gov.tr/) and the pilot approved (same website).
to do so you need to have a valid kimlik card. so I believe tourists cannot apply.
at the end of the process, if successfully approved by the national aviation authority, you get a QR code to print and stick to your drone.  

the whole process took about 1 day and it is quite straightforward, even if the whole website is in turkish only.
to be approved as a pilot you need to pass an easy 20 questions questionnaire (Y/N).
to have the drone approved you need to submit some photo of the equipment, SN, import data and few more questions.
once both parts are completed you get your QR code to download.  

honestly I have never been stopped and asked to produce or give my credentials so I cannot confirm how the verification process works.
but I am very much relieved to be complying

hope this helps

i would like to share my experience of taking my drone to turkey and hopefully it would help some of you out. So i took my DJI Spark from London Heathrow to Istanbul Ataturk Airport and from there to Denizli Cardak. I flew with Turkish Airlines on both flights. Before flying i read through forums and called up Turkish Airlines asking about the drone regulations however they wasnt much help. the best thing to do is read the turkish airlines baggage and luggage item restrictions. i had my drone in my suitcase at first (check in baggage) however i wanted to carry it on me as i didnt want anything to happen to it during flight. before bag check in at london i asked the woman i have a spark which has 2 batteries 16kwh can i carry it as carry on baggage or does it have to stay in my suitcase. she didnt really know as it was a grey area then asked her colleague and she said check with turkish airlines desk and we went and asked him and he said it should be fine however call up someone (i forgot who). she called them up and said its fine they asked for my name and seat number and i was ready to go. i landed in istanbul and went through security no problem at all, no one asked what it is or no one opened my bags. then got on the next flight to Denizli and same there no problem at all. (Quick tip for flying to turkey with a drone, if you want to avoid possible problems try to fly after midnight as the people will be either tired or more careless. I went to Pamukkale (a touristic attraction in Denizli). i was flying my Spark there to get some cool shots and after about 10 mins security came to me and said no drones and even though i am a british citizen my parents are turkish so i decided to speak turkish with him as he may be more sympathetic and understanding. also there wouldnt be a language barrier in between us. so he said to me i am not allowed to fly the drone here and i need to register it and i replied with i do not need to register this drone as it is under 450 grams. i said i have brought this all the way from england and i have checked all the regulations as i am not stupid to bring a expensive drone without any information. he didnt really know the laws however i did bring my drone down as i got enough footage and i didnt want to argue for longer because the only point he had against me which he didnt mention is you cannot fly drones in crowds or in touristic areas. so i thought to myself its pointless arguing and he could use that against me if he knows about it. Even though i have a Turkish Citizen number i didnt feel the need to register my drone as it does not need to be. i went on to fly my drone in different Touristic places such as Aksaray, Goreme, Izmir and had no problem. i flew back to London Heathrow from Konya airport and no problem yet again with Turkish airlines. I had the drone with me in my rucksack and no problems at all.

Endorphin Posted at 2017-6-26 23:54
Returned from Turkey last week, traveled by car. No problem on the border - customs did't search bags, just looked in to the salon. I flew either early morning or in the wild places. Most of the people,  we have met, know about the law about drone and usually reminds us, that because of terrorist threats - the police are very strict.

[view_image]

Awesome pic...


RedHotPoker

Vision One Posted at 2018-4-2 01:17
Turkey only for citizens (as of April 2018). Registration required _BOTH_ for pilots and for drones over 500g. Foreigners/tourists can not fly anything (ever Spark or Mavic Air, which are under 500g). Here's a response from Directorate General of Civil Aviation (http://web.shgm.gov.tr/en):  "In order to fly your drone in Turkey, you have to register your drone and yourself in our reg.system. It is not required to register your drone since the MTOW is under 500 gr. But as a pilot you have to reg. Yourself. But fort he time being foreign people can’t register him/herself. Because reg.system connects to Ministry of Internal Affairs system to verify the citizen number. If you have not Turkish citizen number, you can’t do that."

Well, updating. I've checked with DJI dealer in Turkey and they confirmed that drones under 500 grams are not regulated. No need to register.

And this is explicit in the law (use Google translate, look for places with "500 gr"): http://web.shgm.gov.tr/documents ... HT-IHA_12062017.pdf

Also, Turkey has ended the state of emergency in July 2018.

I'll take Mavic Air next time.