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Drones as a tourist in Malta?

Aerophile

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Planning a trip to Malta next year, hoping to get some nice aerial shots and footage using my Mini3 Pro. Malta is, of course, part of the EU, so I plan to get myself/drone registered per EU regulations well in advance of the trip. (Of course, like most places, the websites purporting to list and clarify drone operator requirements for visitor are contradictory and appear out of date.)

I'm looking for good Malta-specific info and personal experience from visitors who have been there.

I'm particularly looking for online or app-based airspace maps -- how does one view places where airspace is restricted?

Thanks for any pointers or insights.
 



 
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Planning a trip to Malta next year, hoping to get some nice aerial shots and footage using my Mini3 Pro. Malta is, of course, part of the EU, so I plan to get myself/drone registered per EU regulations well in advance of the trip. (Of course, like most places, the websites purporting to list and clarify drone operator requirements for visitor are contradictory and appear out of date.)

I'm looking for good Malta-specific info and personal experience from visitors who have been there.

I'm particularly looking for online or app-based airspace maps -- how does one view places where airspace is restricted?

Thanks for any pointers or insights.
Did you actually go?

The links in the second post include zones but you have to pay and subscribe, either €25 for a year or €10 for a couple of months.

It also seems like you have to request permission to fly in specific dates and times and places, kind of like Portugal or Greece which also require submitting flight plans in advance.
 
Did you actually go?

The links in the second post include zones but you have to pay and subscribe, either €25 for a year or €10 for a couple of months.

It also seems like you have to request permission to fly in specific dates and times and places, kind of like Portugal or Greece which also require submitting flight plans in advance.
Yes, I did. Great trip, very interesting destination. Probably not everyone's cup of tea, but I enjoyed it.

I complied with all the requirements - which took some effort and persistence. I got properly registered with EASA (that wasn't difficult). Got insurance after finally finding a place that would do it. The thing that turned out to be most difficult to get past was registering for the Malta airspace app with their aviation agency. Their website is completely broken (at least the PAYMENT processing part is completely broken, which stops everything else), unless you have a phone number in Malta (nobody was able to tell me of that requirement, it appeared you could use a foreign phone number, was set up to accept them, but that function was simply broken). I was completely stuck at that for weeks. I eventually called and spoke with someone in the Malta aviation agency, they tried to walk me through it, but they were clueless and eventually just told me to keep trying. Nothing worked.

Once I actually got to Malta, I bought a local SIM for my phone - with a Maltese phone number - and bang, I was able to complete the registration process, then installed the map, the map worked (for the most part, it's badly designed and very glitchy, but functional enough to get by).

Fortunately, the place we were staying was just barely outside the airport approach/departure corridor - if our accommodations would have been 100 meters down the street, I would not have been able to fly from there. I was careful to stay legal (although I saw someone else flying a drone which definitely looked to me like it was violating multiple regulations). I was able to get some nice shots and footage, and enjoyed my time there.

salt_pans.jpgchurch.jpgsenglea.jpgover_azure_seas.jpg
 
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Thanks for the report!

So did you submit applications to get permissions for each flight, like specifying time, date, GPS and then getting approvals for each location you wanted to fly?

Or just flew in those areas indicated by the map as being okay to fly?

The third shot appears to be in the Valletta waterfront? That’s a fairly busy area, if not for planes at the airport, maybe helicopters?
 
Thanks for the report!

So did you submit applications to get permissions for each flight, like specifying time, date, GPS and then getting approvals for each location you wanted to fly?

Or just flew in those areas indicated by the map as being okay to fly?

The third shot appears to be in the Valletta waterfront? That’s a fairly busy area, if not for planes at the airport, maybe helicopters?
I did not have to submit any applications or request permissions, since I only flew in airspace that was clear of any such requirements (which was good, because I suspect that the degree of bureaucracy that I encountered would have made any process like that impossible). I checked the airspace map (and checked for TFRs) carefully. Good thing I did, because there was a large international diplomatic conference in the city for a day or two, some kind of summit negotiations for the Middle East with foreign ministers from around Europe and the Mediterranean (this was just days before the Gaza war started, I guess those negotiations didn't work out too well...); that summit resulted in a large TFR and a highly visible and impossible-to-miss heightened security presence. And at one point (maybe the end of the summit?) they rang every churchbell in the country continuously for about 30 minutes, which was kind of cool (at least for the first 5 or 10 minutes, then everybody kept asking "how much longer is this #@*! noise going to go on?").

As for airspace restrictions, there's only one airport in the country, it's obvious and would be hard to miss. There are a handful of scattered small, localized restrictions around (mostly) obvious spots (military installations, etc.) all of which are indicated on the airspace app map. And of course I stayed away from the usual places/things to be avoided (common-sense stuff like police and military installations, the endless stream of giant cruise ships, crowds, etc.). I did not try to fly directly over the capital city (around the edges and over water, yes). I did see a couple drones being flown directly over large crowds in the center of the city, pretty sure that's highly illegal and definitely not something I would attempt.

Once you get away from the city and the airport, there were few outright restrictions that got in the way. Although Malta is very densely populated (I believe the most densely populated state in the EU), it's easy enough to get away from the city and out into relatively empty places (having a car will be needed for that). The only helicopter I saw the entire time I was there (almost 2 weeks) was during the diplomatic summit.

It does get pretty hot there - I was there in the last few days of September and early October and the weather was nearly ideal. I would expect summers there to be brutal and unbearably hot (both for me and for a drone - I'd expect both of us to overheat).
 
Thanks for the report.

Yeah I've held off on registering because it's €25 a year or €10 for 2 months.

I'm going in the first half of April but it's one of the sunniest, warmest place in the EU.

Yeah I see a lot of drone panos in Google Maps over the water, from the coast of Silema looking towards the Valletta skyline.

That's about the one crowded area I'd be interested in flying. I scouted a lot of coastal areas with cliffs that look interesting both on the main island and Gozo and Common.

The one big uncertainty now is that as of 2024, you need to have what are called class labels to fly with the least amount of restrictions. Only drones released in the last 12-18 months are certified to get the class labels.

So I may not be able to fly my Mavic 2 Pro freely, depending on how much they're enforcing these new rules.
 
We loved Gozo a lot, I'd recommend spending a good slice of your time there. Comino, while scenic, is a perfect example of how "over-tourism" and crass exploitation can ruin a beautiful place.

Thanks for the heads-up on the "class labels" thing. I'll be going to Corsica (France) in September and am hoping to fly my Mini 3 Pro there (I already have my EASA registration and the airspace map app for France). Looks like I might need to figure out the whole "class labels" thing before then (I have not looked into it yet...my next trip is to Japan, which appears fairly drone-friendly if you play nice and follow the rules). Hopefully, "class labels" won't require me to ditch my Mini 3 Pro before going to Corsica (which is perfectly adequate for my needs) and get the latest model (of course I wouldn't mind a newer drone, but don't see any compelling need to drop $1K on one right now).

Enjoy Malta. Bring lots of sunscreen and a good hat. Remember the old saying about mad dogs and Englishmen...
 

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