Gives an interesting foresight into likely changes in UK legislation...


Introduction

Dialogue materials Wave 3 shows what's being considered.

When you look at the key concerns:

Anonymity - traceability of users and their intentions
Use of drones near airports
Use of drones by untrained hobbyists – particularly young people
Use of small drones and lack of safety features (e.g. limiting flight height and distance)
Poor quality materials and machines
Invasion of privacy – by the public, state and commercial users

You can see the direction that legislation is inevitably heading and I suspect training and registration wont be the only requirements.

I had a squint at that last week, interestingly enough, bottom of page 13 only refers to control of airspace (other than NFZ) and height limitation to 400ft for drones over 7Kg.

"For drones 20kg or less
 They are exempt from most of the ANO – except articles 138, 166 and 167   Operators of drones must: • Ensure that their flight can be conducted safely • Maintain visual line of sight to avoid collisions • Not drop articles or animals from the drone which endanger persons/property • Additional airspace and height limitations (400ft) apply to drones of more than 7kg "

Aardvark Posted at 2016-5-15 17:09
I had a squint at that last week, interestingly enough, bottom of page 13 only refers to control of  ...

But you cannot fly within 150m of a city, town, settlement etc without CAA approval (if you have a camera).  Frankly the current "rules" are a mess and a horrible confusion of safety and privacy.

But dogs can free fall from drones provided they don't damage people or property

No doubt at some point registration, and 'training' perhaps. Insurance , perhaps.

But I'm curious, when we 1st fire up the drone the first thing that needs to be done is to 'activate' it using your email address.......Soooooo , are we already tied to our drones for purpose of identification ? A few other things were mentioned there which are already in place.

So far I think the CAA has been fairly sensible with regards to drones, they know the rules are out of date and need updating, and I personally think that if the government allow the CAA to set the new rules we'll be OK.

You got to laugh at the UK government, slashed the police force to it's bones, changed the way crime is reported and equated to hide the rise in criminality, then makes up a bunch of unenforceable UAV laws.

Try reporting a drone flying around over your roof to the police, unless you are well connected, do not expect much help.

Advocate Posted at 2016-5-15 17:31
So far I think the CAA has been fairly sensible with regards to drones, they know the rules are out  ...

I hope you are correct but when you hear what is happening in mainland Europe (Belgium, Netherlands etc) it is concerning.

It'll be interesting to see what comes out of the research. Before I got my P3 I was concerned with the negative reaction I may have got from the public when flying. Almost everybody said to me "oh you're not getting one of those are you", I replied "yeah! I'm going to photograph the neighbour sunbathing and fly it around airports!", they got my point!

So far everybody has taken a keen positive interest in the drone and the shots I'm getting from it (apart from the odd negative comment on Twitter). It appears to me that the press are generating negativity by dramatising incidents rather than promoting the artistic element they can be used for, but I suppose that is what the press do!

I did have the police knocking on my door, had been hovering above my garden in a town so technically illegal. Asked the old bill what section of the law they were enforcing and they couldnt tell me, so I told them to leave my property and they did, they havent been back. I have been behaving myself since so no more complaints I guess.

I think the most likely outcome is compulsory registration and third party liability insurance. Don't be deceived by the apparent "consultation". Government consultation is always (in my experience) designed to get an outcome pre-determined by civil servants. I have participated in so-called consultations which turned out to be complete and utter shams. In this case you can see the way it's going already. A clue is that only 150 people were used for the Wave 1 and 2 elements, they were selected by the company carrying out the "consultation", and the participants' forum is closed to the general public so we can't listen to conversations between participants. It would be scandalous if it wasn't so normal.
Interesting that there's no mention anywhere of the https://www.bmfa.org/ and their insurance scheme. First thing I did after ordering my P3A was join BMFA so I could get the insurance cover which I thought was very reasonably priced at £33. Reading their magazine and website it seems they are getting a lot of new members because of the retail sales of UAVs. I wish the BMFA were playing a bigger part in all this because the cheapest and simplest solution would be for the BMFA to become the body that deals with registration and everyone uses their existing insurance scheme. If a new body is set up to handle registration, or if the CAA are tasked with this, the cost is almost certainly going to be much greater (I have held a CAA group A PPL for over 30 years - it's amazing how their charges have gone up) - and then insurance will have to be purchased separately.

Great discussion.

From the wave 3 notes that Nigel linked to -

A minimum 3rd party insurance requirement for all leisure users which can only be activated by accessing a web site and passing a very simple safety awareness test