Everynow and again I make comments on peoples videos if I like them or if I think they have done somethng different than what I have seen before.  What I don't expect in return is for the person that I commented on to check my channel and suddenly become "The Drone Police".  Its so very annoying.  
Every now and again and not very often, I admit I skirt with danger by taking my little drone to the edge of a road from above or to within a viewing distance of some people, or it flies over my house on a Return to Home when I have actually flown around it.  Once I even flew my drone in my back garden and up in the air to test something quite quickly on the camera all with my near neighbours permission.  99.9% of the time I follow the Drone Code to perfection so I do not expect these uneducated drone police to be messaging me saying that I shouldn't fly near a road without closing the road and that they are only doing it to help me so that CAA don't come knocking on my door.



DAMN THEM DRONE POLICE, what pleasure do they get.  Am I wrong?  Should every single video on YouTube be scrutinised by everyone for flying misbehavoirs?  I am not talking about those that regularly flaunt with dangers and get many views for doing it, I am talking about the people that are doing this as safe and pracrtical as possible as a hobby, but who ever so slightly do something that is not ilegal but is "recommended" not too.

Argggggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, sorry I just got a little annoyed today.

i see yout point of view but if you're going to fly on fine line of breaking vs non-breaking the law then I would suggest do not point those videos that may get you in trouble/

i see your point of view but if you're going to fly on fine line of breaking vs non-breaking the law then I would suggest do not point those videos that may get you in trouble/

I totally agree with you!  I feel it ok , now and then, for people to suggest that a person may want to use caution when doing this or that, but some people are just self appointed drone police. It is annoying! Under the disguise of 'watching out for the sport', it is mainly a viewpoint that ' they follow all the strictest measures' and if you don't , you have a problem and they need to point it out to you.  

I would just be carfull what you post as if its ilegal you will be incriminating your self especialy if you put it in the public domain and stay safe.

I hear you.  I hope you don't find my response as the "police tone." ;)  A solution could be to create a private channel.  And then, only post/share those wicked cool shots with cool folks.  Drone on!

#1 , I don't care what you do unless it is outright dangerous to someone else .
#2 , The RC community has been around for many decades and just recently has had a major influx of novice "pilots" that really don't even have to know how to "pilot" and in turn doing careless and irresponsible things . That has changed many decades of RC enthusiast following the guidelines and exceptions with incidences have been very rare . You're expected to get some negative reactions . Just fly considerate and safely .

#3 , This new issue with drones that take very little thought to take straight out of the box off a store shelf and be able to fly for miles away has changed the "these are RC guidelines' to the FAA now saying "You MUST follow these guidelines". It affects everybody

The new crop of fliers constantly look over the FAA uses that term "MUST".

3.    Do I need permission from the FAA to fly a UAS for recreation or as a hobby?
There are two ways for recreational or hobby UAS fliers to operate in the National Airspace System in accordance with the law and/or FAA regulations. Each of the two options has specific requirements that the UAS operator must follow. The decision as to which option to follow is up to the individual operator.
Option #1. Fly in accordance with the Special Rule for Model Aircraft (Public Law 112-95 Section 336). Under this rule, operators must:
a.     Fly for hobby or recreational purposes only
b.    Follow a community-based set of safety guidelines
c.    Fly the UAS within visual line-of-sight
d.    Give way to manned aircraft
e.    Provide prior notification to the airport and air traffic control tower, if one is present, when flying within 5 miles of an airport
f.     Fly UAS that weigh no more than 55 lbs. unless certified by a community-based organization
g.    Register the aircraft (UAS over 0.55 lbs. and less than 55 lbs. can be registered online at registermyuas.faa.gov; UAS 55 lbs. or greater must be registered through the FAA's paper-based process)

If every time you watched a video on Drone Flying you made what I call "Drone Police" statements to the channel in the comments or by messaging this community would be so very very toxic.  People need to step back a little and make the points when the point actually is needed, not go searching in the hay stack for errors each time you view a video.  The person that commented to me was someone that made money out of Drone Video Weddings, so he was actually quoting "Closing Roads for Safety" when my craft was over my house.  I knew the CAA UK Drone Code, but it certainly doesn't request closing roads for hobbyist, but does mention flying near property.  I am certainly not a serial law breaker, there are many more people to pick on that are on YouTube.

It's like driving a car, we all have gone over the speed limit at some point in life and / or made an illegal driving maneuver... just be mindful of what you record and post... others who do not know the laws will see it as reckless and / or acceptable.

devGOD Posted at 2017-2-26 11:46
It's like driving a car, we all have gone over the speed limit at some point in life and / or made an illegal driving maneuver... just be mindful of what you record and post... others who do not know the laws will see it as reckless and / or acceptable.

Yeah, every now again in life you see the nutter in the road waving fists at all the cars and shouting STOP SPEEDING, just like the Drone Police.

People shouldn't be so rigid when coming to some regulations, as they are not as clear cut as they may seem.

Example:
- I live in a small city with a "somewhat" serious airport at the end of the city.
- This city has MAJOR changes in elevation from place to place, compared to the other extremes like the prairies.
- Canada says to be 9km from airport, and maybe this makes sense on prairies as of course is related to planes descending in that airspace.
- The downtown of my city, it is 5km from airport, but about 500 feet below the ground level of this airport.

So in this example, at 5km from the airport, if I fly to max altitude in country (300 feet), according to regulations I am "too close", to the airpot.

In reality it is still 200 feet BELOW the GROUND level of the runway!

Also this area is encompassed by hills, so for a plane to be near my drone, already means the plane is in trouble!


To me, it is acceptable to follow:
- Not over people (obviously)

- Not over "traffic" not necessarily roads:
      - If there is a road, and no sign of traffic in either direction from the sky view, and i make sure I am high up, then as far as I am concerned it is perfectly ok to fly across this road, as the point of this rule is to not be in a position for drone to drop in traffic or distract drivers.

- Over private property to a point.
     - Flying over say houses in a neighborhood is not as illegal as you may think!     - The exact allowable height still seems gray, but technically what you need to avoid, is having a camera perspective on someones property, which could allow you to identify unique people or objects, which otherwise could not be identifyable from a conventional vantage point. The actual act of flying over the house is not what is bad.
     - Back in the day a homeowner owned from "Heaven to Hell", meaning all the ground beneath the property, and all the sky above to infinity. All this changed when the aviation industry happened, so it is not considered private property to fly over a house/neighborhood anymore, and infact if was, FAA would need permission from everyone to fly anywhere, which is why this was changed.     - So if you fly low over the house and can see in your neighbours window, obviously bad. If you are 300-400 feet high and flying over (say to get to your destination) this is actually ok for FAA!

Agree with you 100% - the "masters of the obvious" drone police are annoying.    They will feel insulted by your post and will no doubt be chiming in here with all sorts of dribble about why it is important to comment on the safety in every video.   

I agree, just yesterday, right after sunset, after drinking a pint of tequila my buddies and I flew our drones up in Atti mode about 700 feet over the local school to watch some Bald Eagles mate and apparently some of the baby bald Eagles were getting too close to the drone (I couldn't see because the tall buildings were in my way and I had lost line of sight about five minutes earlier) so we deployed the home made pepper spray drone defense system and some nut job kept asking if it was organic pepper spray!  

I fly high, fly FPV, and simply ignore the comments.

Easy

SkyWeasel Posted at 2017-2-26 14:52
I agree, just yesterday, right after sunset, after drinking a pint of tequila my buddies and I flew our drones up in Atti mode about 700 feet over the local school to watch some Bald Eagles mate and apparently some of the baby bald Eagles were getting too close to the drone (I couldn't see because the tall buildings were in my way and I had lost line of sight about five minutes earlier) so we deployed the home made pepper spray drone defense system and some nut job kept asking if it was organic pepper spray!

Speaking of pepper spray.  Look at these poor Mavic owners with YouTube videos being punished by the DRONE POLICE: