Help and information for other drone owners
Hi fellow flyers
I've spent about a week in the evenings reading all the information on the UK CAA (civil aviation authority) website (165 pages total) and have additionally spoken to the BMFA (British model flying association) in depth,as well as drone training websites and I've realised that you can apply to the CAA (UK) yourself.
To enable you to do this you will have to prove you have previous flying experience, so if you belong to a RC flying club the flying achievements and or the club secretary could witness and endorse you as an safe flying RC/drone pilot. (There's a set obstacle/coarse the Drone trainers use) you could easily set one up yourself at your RC club.
Then spent a couple of months logging as many drone flights as possible and ideally videoing them both from the ground with your phone and video footage from the drone, then make a drone flight channel on Youtube, I say this because the CAA will accept any form of proof as a safe pilot during their investigations (i asked them)
Then get permission from building and home owners to practice on their properties and video the whole process showing you are flying and operating within the full scope of your operations manual, operations manuals of all kinds can be downloaded off the net and printed off (i think the CAA has one for downloading as i remember reading)
When recording your flights have all the necessary safety gear like fire extinguisher,first aid,drone barrier,hi viz etc,..all as per your operations manual.
keep flight logs of flights,again a flight log can be downloaded off the net.
Try and get a short letter from each of the Building owners you practice on, you could draw up a draught letter that they just sign as happy that you operated safely and with your operations manual.
Bottom line is they just want you to prove you are a safe pilot and comply with all aspects of your operations manual with insurance.
Obviously this is not for the inexperienced but for those that think WTF! a £1000 for drone training coarse! save the money as do it yourself.
I've been flying big gas planes (100cc plus) RC helicopters, RC Jets 200mph + F5D planes 200mph + and to be honest flying A DJI GPS drone is so childs play its similar to asking an F1 racing car driver if he can drive a go-cart.
The lowest standard application is drones of 7kg and under, this covers most DJI drones right up to a Matrice 200 which is 6.2kg fully loaded.
If anybody wants all the info relevant to doing an application let me know and I'll email it.
Here's a quick free download i found. Operations Manual for Leicester Drones
Just copy and type it up yourself...that's what i'm doing. there's also plenty of others on the web to download.
Final Thought
All this can be done at your own pace and to be honest i'm quite enjoying putting this all together myself.
plus you don't have to take 3 days off work driving gods knows where to take the coarse and paying for hotels.
If your self employed this is what it will cost you.
Coarse approx £1000
3-4 days off work £800 (i'm an electrician)
insurance approx £150-£200
CAA application £173
hotel 3 days £150
Fuel to drive there £50
Total approx £2500
Do the whole process yourself and save approx £2000.
Hi fellow flyers
I've spent about a week in the evenings reading all the information on the UK CAA (civil aviation authority) website (165 pages total) and have additionally spoken to the BMFA (British model flying association) in depth,as well as drone training websites and I've realised that you can apply to the CAA (UK) yourself.
To enable you to do this you will have to prove you have previous flying experience, so if you belong to a RC flying club the flying achievements and or the club secretary could witness and endorse you as an safe flying RC/drone pilot. (There's a set obstacle/coarse the Drone trainers use) you could easily set one up yourself at your RC club.
Then spent a couple of months logging as many drone flights as possible and ideally videoing them both from the ground with your phone and video footage from the drone, then make a drone flight channel on Youtube, I say this because the CAA will accept any form of proof as a safe pilot during their investigations (i asked them)
Then get permission from building and home owners to practice on their properties and video the whole process showing you are flying and operating within the full scope of your operations manual, operations manuals of all kinds can be downloaded off the net and printed off (i think the CAA has one for downloading as i remember reading)
When recording your flights have all the necessary safety gear like fire extinguisher,first aid,drone barrier,hi viz etc,..all as per your operations manual.
keep flight logs of flights,again a flight log can be downloaded off the net.
Try and get a short letter from each of the Building owners you practice on, you could draw up a draught letter that they just sign as happy that you operated safely and with your operations manual.
Bottom line is they just want you to prove you are a safe pilot and comply with all aspects of your operations manual with insurance.
Obviously this is not for the inexperienced but for those that think WTF! a £1000 for drone training coarse! save the money as do it yourself.
I've been flying big gas planes (100cc plus) RC helicopters, RC Jets 200mph + F5D planes 200mph + and to be honest flying A DJI GPS drone is so childs play its similar to asking an F1 racing car driver if he can drive a go-cart.
The lowest standard application is drones of 7kg and under, this covers most DJI drones right up to a Matrice 200 which is 6.2kg fully loaded.
If anybody wants all the info relevant to doing an application let me know and I'll email it.
Here's a quick free download i found. Operations Manual for Leicester Drones
Just copy and type it up yourself...that's what i'm doing. there's also plenty of others on the web to download.
Final Thought
All this can be done at your own pace and to be honest i'm quite enjoying putting this all together myself.
plus you don't have to take 3 days off work driving gods knows where to take the coarse and paying for hotels.
If your self employed this is what it will cost you.
Coarse approx £1000
3-4 days off work £800 (i'm an electrician)
insurance approx £150-£200
CAA application £173
hotel 3 days £150
Fuel to drive there £50
Total approx £2500
Do the whole process yourself and save approx £2000.
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