At the risk of sounding paranoid, I am concerned that drone laws may become much more restrictive in the near future, in part due to flights in no fly zones and other illegal places. This would obviously be bad for all of us.

What if we encouraged those on this forum who post photos and videos, to provide an explanation of how their flight is legal? That could include a link to local laws, or a screen snapshot of a B4UFly screen or equivalent, or even written persmission from an authority. I sort of did that with one of my recent postings here showing a video from San Francisco. I'll do that with all videos going forward to try to set an example.

We could append a simple bit of text like this to videos posted here:
Flight authorization: <link>, or <screen snapshot of B4UFly>, or <letter of authorizatoion>, or <something else>

Others might pick this up by example.

It was this posting that motivated me to propose this: https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=145540

Nice topic.

It is interesting idea and I can see positives.  The problem will be all different rules and regulations between Countries, States, and even local ordinances.

I am concerned that drone laws may become much more restrictive in the near future, in part due to flights in no fly zones and other illegal places.  

There is no other way than to get into politics on this one.  Being there is no 1st or 2nd Amendment protecing ones Right to Fly a Drone.  There is very little to stop cities, counties, or states from imposing all sorts of draconian drone laws.  It has already been mentioned FAA's 5-mile radius around Airports (commerical to private dirt), Helipads (hospitals), etc. was further (bigger radius) than needed.  

No doubt some politician will jump on ''Public Safety'' (without basis), and claim a 8-mile or 10-mile radius is needed.  We have already seen a case where a Drone Pilot was harrassed, arrested, and had his drone confiscated, not because he violated any laws or regulations.  But a case of city using police to protect their cash cow of national business.  Got to keep cows happy!

Wait until Big-Wally, Bemoth-Amazonian, or one of major shippers Fed-Up comes to a city / urban area and proposes commerical drone deliveries.  Accompanied by standard palm greasing and large campaign donnations.  Followed by a request that those pesky hobby drones be banned from city / urban area so as not to pose a ''Safety'' risk to public by interferring with commerical drones.   

The only thing that might stop politicians, cities, counties, states from imposing draconian drone laws is if it ruffles the feathers of F.A.A.  In regards, to aforementioned invading F.A.A.'s turf or usurping F.A.A.'s claim to control everything from dirt up.

I live in a very remote area where drones are scarce, and in the event that I would get into an area where there exiting a NFZ I would not fly, it's as simple as that, respect people privacy, fly your drone responsibility and you won't have any problems.

Picanoc Jack Posted at 2018-4-27 22:06
I live in a very remote area where drones are scarce, and in the event that I would get into an area where there exiting a NFZ I would not fly, it's as simple as that, respect people privacy, fly your drone responsibility and you won't have any problems.

You and I know that, but not everyone else gets it, as you can see from the large number of illegal drone flights on youtube, leading to lawmakers wanting to pass laws to make it harder to fly your drone.

I recently asked permission to fly over a popular winery in NS where my summer home is located, they answered me saying no,  I will respect their wishes, the reason that I was denied is because some other people disrespected them in another winery which they owned in another province, so they ruined it for those of us who are responsible.

Guess we quite lucky in South Africa no one cares if you fly a drone or not or where you fly. More so the inquisitive ones just ask a few questions and then happy to be off.

The general rules for the UK are stay a 50 metre bubble away from people and property (ie you can fly around and over them) and stay 150 metres away horizontally from crowds and congested (built up) areas (ie you cannot fly over them).
So if you see a video flying over a town or city, it's not within the rules. If it's over countryside or the sea, it probably is.  

There is a sense of guilty until proved innocent with this idea; I'm not sure we should have to prove our legitimacy? No different to speeding cars; some break the rules; some don't.
People don't bat an eyelid when a hot air balloon or paraglider goes over, but they think they have the power to refuse drones flying over,
The CAA and FAA control airspace, not the land owners.  Stay high and don't annoy people and there's not much more to worry about....

Cheers,
Ian in London

I mentioned this over a year ago, but the hobby flyers will soon all be grounded worldwide when Rescue Service, Amazon(similar) and the Police have the air space rights under 400ft for their drones.  Why would they risk hitting a hobby flyer when they will have bought the space?

If this is proposed on a voluntary basis then I agree - should the author feel the need to cover him/herself. However, it should not be mandatory.

HomePoint Posted at 2018-4-28 01:54
I mentioned this over a year ago, but the hobby flyers will soon all be grounded worldwide when Rescue Service, Amazon(similar) and the Police have the air space rights under 400ft for their drones.  Why would they risk hitting a hobby flyer when they will have bought the space?

Various large telco companies are working on a number 'air traffic control' systems for all drone flights ... the  delivery drones will have all pre-planed flight paths and will have active ID tags so will be fully remotely tracked - also onboard drone on drone collision avoidance. For example Vodafone are developing such a system and currently field testing it in Spain this month.

The trouble with more rules are that only the responsible flyers will abide by them. As more drones become accessible to the public, the number of irresponsible flyers will increase. It is a numbers game that rules alone can't overcome, so they just make responsible flying more restrictive. As an optional way of describing questionable flights?... of course I would agree.