I just took a look around Ely in the app Drone Assist for locations to fly and it shows most of the edges of Ely as green zones, and it even shows Ely Cathedral as being in a drone code zone with a mild yellow caution about the nearby Kings School.

Does this mean that if I was there early enough, or late enough, one day I could do a flyover of the cathedral?

You may have missed these guidelines on the UK website:

[url=]http://dronesafe.uk/drone-code/[/url]

Take a look and decide for yourself whether you're prepared to take the risk - and the potential consequences.
Whatever you do, enjoy the hobby safely.
Best wishes
Bleriot53

Blériot53 Posted at 2018-2-2 07:47
You may have missed these guidelines on the UK website:

http://dronesafe.uk/drone-code/

I took a closer look around the site itself with the drone code in mind. It's not suitable for over flying as a hobbyist but they would consider allowing me to overfly if I obtain a PfCO, which I am in the process of doing, and then submitted a request to them

Hazy Jay Posted at 2018-2-2 07:58
I took a closer look around the site itself with the drone code in mind. It's not suitable for over flying as a hobbyist but they would consider allowing me to overfly if I obtain a PfCO, which I am in the process of doing, and then submitted a request to them

That represents a considerable financial investment. Probably at the point where one migrates from hobbyist to commercial.  Good luck with it all.

Nah, for me it'd be a hobby flight at Ely, I'm gaining the PfCO to do commercial work elsewhere so I'm not getting it to just fly over Ely cathedral ha ha

Looks OK to go up vertically and get some photos from interesting angles, not sure you can sensibly do a fly around video since you would end up flying over roads where you don't have any control of who is using them.  Will be interesting to see if you get permission for that, I guess not.

Not sure why you would want to fly over it, and it doesn't seem very sensible since if the drone did fall you could be paying for some very expensive repairs, the gains are just not worth the risk.

Nigel_ Posted at 2018-2-2 11:29
Looks OK to go up vertically and get some photos from interesting angles, not sure you can sensibly do a fly around video since you would end up flying over roads where you don't have any control of who is using them.  Will be interesting to see if you get permission for that, I guess not.

Not sure why you would want to fly over it, and it doesn't seem very sensible since if the drone did fall you could be paying for some very expensive repairs, the gains are just not worth the risk.

Every time you fly you risk a loss, or a fail. If we were permanently bothered by what might happen, we'd never go out and see what does happen.

As it goes, the reason would be for a photography series of cathedrals from the air - both overhead, and viewing higher up features not easily seen from the ground. That's exactly what I discussed with them and they were keen to consider so long as I have PfCO and insurance. I happen to like cathedrals, admire the architecture tremendously, and will do this - safely - regardless of naysayers when I have my PfCO.