Not really .... but having clear knowledge of what you can and can't do is really important, and I can't stress that enough.
I recently earned my Cert III in Aviation - Remote Pilot (RePL). I was fortunate to do this as one of the fee-free TAFE courses in north-east NSW. What it has done though is remove A LOT of the grey area around what you can and can't do, as dictated by CASA's rules around Remote Piloted Aircraft (including fixed-wing).
Put simply, the rules are there to protect you and everyone around you.
Some of the things I see a lot of (locally);
- Flying over people
- Flying over whales
- Flying beyond VLoS (easy to do) including flying in cloud
- Can I fly at such-and-such location
The one big thing the course taught me to do was read aeronautical maps, and determine what can and can't be done at a given site. I can't overstate how important this is to know. For example, can you fly in a Military/Restricted site? Generally the answer is YES, but you must work out whether that site is currently in use.
All of the information above is freely available, you just need to know where to look.
For example - discussion around flying off the edge of a lookout or mountain. With a vertical ceiling off 400ft/120m, you need to know the elevation of the lookout. By flying out horizontally for 100m you might be 100m+ over the floor of a valley, which changes how high you can fly. All of this info is available on maps.
I once had a potentially near-miss with a small aircraft. I didn't launch but was moments away from it. In this case I firmly believe the 2 joycraft were below their elevation floor, however it was still a potential catastrophe. I have personal friends who posted flying at night around the Gold Coast near The Spit, over people, and another who is entering photos into competitions along Sydney's beaches, which breaches both flying over people, and in proximity to the runway of Kingsford Smith airport corridor (limited altitude).
Personally I'm happy to answer any questions, and I've seen a lot of 'well I checked this and that' and then they've gone and breached CASA's rules.
I recently earned my Cert III in Aviation - Remote Pilot (RePL). I was fortunate to do this as one of the fee-free TAFE courses in north-east NSW. What it has done though is remove A LOT of the grey area around what you can and can't do, as dictated by CASA's rules around Remote Piloted Aircraft (including fixed-wing).
Put simply, the rules are there to protect you and everyone around you.
Some of the things I see a lot of (locally);
- Flying over people
- Flying over whales
- Flying beyond VLoS (easy to do) including flying in cloud
- Can I fly at such-and-such location
The one big thing the course taught me to do was read aeronautical maps, and determine what can and can't be done at a given site. I can't overstate how important this is to know. For example, can you fly in a Military/Restricted site? Generally the answer is YES, but you must work out whether that site is currently in use.
All of the information above is freely available, you just need to know where to look.
For example - discussion around flying off the edge of a lookout or mountain. With a vertical ceiling off 400ft/120m, you need to know the elevation of the lookout. By flying out horizontally for 100m you might be 100m+ over the floor of a valley, which changes how high you can fly. All of this info is available on maps.
I once had a potentially near-miss with a small aircraft. I didn't launch but was moments away from it. In this case I firmly believe the 2 joycraft were below their elevation floor, however it was still a potential catastrophe. I have personal friends who posted flying at night around the Gold Coast near The Spit, over people, and another who is entering photos into competitions along Sydney's beaches, which breaches both flying over people, and in proximity to the runway of Kingsford Smith airport corridor (limited altitude).
Personally I'm happy to answer any questions, and I've seen a lot of 'well I checked this and that' and then they've gone and breached CASA's rules.
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