I think folks thought you were referring to "drones" as we think of them today. You're correct about model airplanes. I flew my first radio controlled airplane 60 years ago.
Jim
Hello.........and Goodbye.
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Jim
Lastrexking
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Nope, we don’t have to inform the police before every flight (or any for that matter).
There's a lot of misinformation out there.
The rules keep changing. It's hard to keep up.
I started posting aerial videos on YouTube 8-1/2 years ago after getting my first Phantom. Four (or 5?) years later the rules in Canada suddenly changed overnight when a set of interim regulations were hastily slapped together. Every single one of the flights I had posted up to that day would have been considered illegal for one reason or another, if I had conducted them subsequent to the date of the new rules.
They can't go after you for stuff you posted before the rules took effect.
Suddenly we were no longer allowed to fly within 100' of any person, vehicle, vessel, structure, or animal! (Animal ?!? Huh??) How am I supposed to know how close the nearest squirrel is??
And, we were no longer allowed to fly within 5NM (9 km) of any "aerodrome". Our cottage was within 9km of the nearest float plane dock. But, our lake and the next lake with the seaplane dock was separated by a 1200' mountain.
Thankfully those rules were significantly refined in more recent versions. But, all of the many experiments I conducted with my Phantoms and posted on YouTube would now also be considered illegal under the new rules. Except for the few I did indoors, those tests were all done at low altitude within the confines of our local high school football field. Unfortunately that field is just within the controlled airspace of the Ottawa International Airport.
Even if I submitted to bending a knee and subjecting myself to taking the required tests for a Basic Certificate in order to be allowed to continue flying my Phantoms, that's still not enough. I'd first need the Advanced Certificate, plus authorization to fly within a controlled airspace, in order to be allowed to fly in that football field again now. It's ridiculous.
But I can happily fly my sub-250g Mavic Mini perfectly legally.
Yes, but what people seem to be overlooking is that all these new draconian "drone" regulations now apply equally to your everyday "model airplanes" which have been flown for over 60 years.
Anything weighing more than 250 grams is subject to all these crazy regulations. And what's really strange is that in the EU, even otherwise harmless sub-250g aircraft still need to be registered if they so much as carry a camera! [That's true, isn't it?]
Clearly it's not the mass of the aircraft which presents the danger. The camera is the greatest danger. That's because anyone who flies a camera obviously must be either a peeping tom, pervert, or paedophile. Sheesh.
People have flown cameras on model airplanes for decades. But now that cameras can be flown on a "drone" [shiver], that's somehow suddenly a huge problem.
I can't tell you how often, when they find out I have a drone, people will ask me, "Do you use that to spy on your neighbour?" What's up with that?
I send them this YouTube link. I love this video. Here's a guy who mounts a camera on his model Piper Cub, just so he can share his joy of flight. He's not spying on anyone. Where/when/why has this simple fun disappeared?
Back to the questions of the original poster, thinking the Mavic Mini is insufficient for his photographic needs, here's another example to consider.
It's not the quality of the equipment used, it's the quality of how you use the equipment you have that matters.
Here's an innovative and clever use of a 360° spherical camera. Click and drag to rotate the video image.
It's not the quality of the equipment used, it's the quality of how you use the equipment you have that matters.
Here's an innovative and clever use of a 360° spherical camera. Click and drag to rotate the video image.
Based on his initial post, I think that's what he was lamenting - as a photographer that's what he wants to do. But for most of the places he wants to film he now can not do that, if he follows the rules.
That's true, I've been concerned about them applying to all things. But as others have pointed out on here it's much more difficult to just take off a normal RC plane anywhere and fly it. You MUST keep it within LOS to fly it correctly, and you need a runway - so most likely you'll be on a hobbyist field somewhere. It is all pretty frustrating though. I've just gotten into this in the last year and it seems at the same time new regs popping up limiting all kinds of things - here in the USA.
I doubt that....too much risk of them falling and injuring people or damaging property. But we'll see.
There are all sorts of different types of "drones", ranging from crazy fast and powerful FPV racing drones to tiny nimble little FPV drones, from 3-rotor, 4-rotor, 6-rotor, 8-rotor, etc multirotor drones, from cheap little toy drones meant to be flown only indoors, to enormously powerful industrial drones.
Despite the huge diversity in capability, here in Canada they're all lumped into one of three categories -- sub-250gram, 250g-25kg, or bigger than 25kg. Even though most people know what it means, nobody has come up with any sort of enforceable definition of "drone". Instead we have Remotely Piloted Aircraft, which unfortunately includes traditional model aircraft.
However, just like it's an oversimplification to call all multirotor models "drones", it's also a huge oversimplification to say "normal RC planes" need a runway and can only be flown correctly via LOS.
There is just as large a diversity in model aircraft, ranging from hugely expensive and fast turbine powered planes that do require runways, down to superlight foamy planes that can be hand-launched anywhere. Yes, some of the typical scale model warbirds like to be flown where they can be appreciated by other scale builders at hobby fields. But float planes can be launched and landed at any cottage lake. Model helicopters don't require runways. And long-range fixed-wing models have been successfully flown for quite some time now over enormous distances using FPV goggles.
All of those many different types of "normal RC planes" are now equally shoe-horned into the exact same three categories of Remotely Piloted Aircraft, subject to the same regulations -- sub-250gram, 250g-25kg, or bigger than 25kg.
It's nuts.
I encourage everybody to download and read the November 21, 2015 Final Report from the FAA's own Aviation Rulemaking Committee that initially gave birth to this 250 gram threshold for which registration eventually became mandatory worldwide.
The report can be downloaded from this link: www.hsdl.org/?view&did=788722
Based on a report that 80 Joules of kinetic energy has a 30% probability of being lethal when striking a person in the head, the committee calculated that a brick-shaped object, but with the coefficient of drag of a baseball, when dropped from 500ft, through sea-level density atmosphere, would achieve the velocity required to deliver 80 Joules of kinetic energy only if that object weighed 250 grams or more.
Conversely, that 250 gram object therefor has a 70% probability of not being lethal, no?
That's like the weather report announcing there's a 30% chance of rain, meaning there's actually a much greater 70% chance of no rain!
The committee went on to estimate the probability of such a lethal event occurring. They assumed a failure rate causing this average brick-sized drone weighing more than 250 grams to drop out of the air from 500ft altitude after every 100 hours of operation. Comparing the surface area of this drone to the surface area of the top of a human head, they assumed one of these drones would fall from 500ft after every 100 hours of use into a "densely packed urban area" of 10,000 people per sq.mile!
Granted, they estimated only 20% of that densely packed population would be exposed at any given moment, as most would be safely bunkered down inside their homes.
Further calculations estimated the likelihood of such a "catastrophic event" as;
"4.7x10-8, or less than 1 ground fatality for every 20,000,000 flight hours of an sUAS"
[ 20,000,000 hours = 2,283 years! ]
The committee report also pointed out that this risk of fatality by drone is about 1,000 times safer than general aviation, which has a risk level of 5x10-5.
I'm not making any of this up. It's all in the committee's Final Report. www.hsdl.org/?view&did=788722
All this is to say, the risk of fatality from a sub-250 gram drone, which typically has a much greater coefficient of drag than a baseball, and is typically never flown as high as 500ft, or over a "densely packed urban area", was calculated by this committee to be so utterly miniscule that no government could ever seriously justify increased regulations for this category based solely on risk of fatality.
I encourage everyone to download their own copy of this committee report for safekeeping in the event you ever have a need to prove just how ridiculous the 250 gram threshold actually is.
The Drone Assist app gives very clear indication of where is restricted and where is not. I always check before I about to head out and fly in a new area. I flew in Cornwall and Dorest last week and made sure I stayed away from people. The amino 2 is a go anywhere tool.
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As I keep saying - YES! It may not always be easy, and it’s often inconvenient, but I aim to stay entirely within the rules when I fly.
vindibona1
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You "aim to"... or you do? Have you never flown beyond VLOS? If you fly without strobes that means you never fly more than approximately 120m away, right (500m with strobes... but that might take you over the weight limit, no?)?
Yes, I do. I don’t fly huge distances away for the very reason that I can’t see the drone. As I said in an earlier post, if my point of interest is a long way away, I simply take off closer to it. It may be inconvenient sometimes, but it’s far from being impossible as some people seem to think. I can only assume that those people who are questioning my ability to stay legal are probably those who think minor transgressions are ok as long as they’re not caught.
Read through all this, glad on I am one the west coast of Canada and outside of Vancouver. Drone flying is pretty straight forward. To get some really great stuff I have drive, maybe 10 minutes maybe an hour or so, more if I want the ocean.
But the same applies to my handheld camera.
Perhaps it is a North American thing but 30 even 50 miles (50 to 80 KM) is pretty much nothing some people around here commute that 1 way everyday. To make that drive to get a stunning bit of photography is just a nice afternoon out.
There will always be more restrictions, all you can do is work within them or get organized an try a fight them.
But the same applies to my handheld camera.
Perhaps it is a North American thing but 30 even 50 miles (50 to 80 KM) is pretty much nothing some people around here commute that 1 way everyday. To make that drive to get a stunning bit of photography is just a nice afternoon out.
There will always be more restrictions, all you can do is work within them or get organized an try a fight them.
LOL! You obviously don't realize that all UAS (R/C airplanes, R/C helicopters, and R/C MULTIROTORS) are now under the same single classification. This is a mavic forum but we are talking UAS Regulations which cover much more than "just" your Mavic. It's time to think bigger than yourself and just your interest in the mavic your flying. When we talk regulations they apply to ALL of us across the board. My statement about "flying these four decades ago is VERY accurate regardless of your narrow perspective on the industry.
Again very narrow sighted I'm afraid. I've got airplanes (UAS) that are hand launched and can fly from my lawn chair and caught again sitting comfortably on my deck (can fly almost anywhere). Micro/Mini Planes and Helicopters are now VERY common and insanely easy to fly from just about anywhere.
I've got FPV equipment on 3 of my airplanes and one of my helicopters. If I so desired, I could fly FPV (just like your mavic) well beyond VLOS.
With a DJI Mini 2 you can fly almost anywhere.
Here is an extract from the CAA drone registration site.
It is where you can fly a sub 250gm drone in the UK. You need an operator and flyer registration.
Residential areas include:
- cities and towns
- villages
- housing estates
- schools
- tourist attractions
- sports facilities
- beaches and parks
- theme parks
- shopping centres
- warehouses
- business parks
- factories
- docks
- rail and transport hubs
Seems we can fly almost anywhere unless it is a specified no fly area. Have a look at No Fly Drones
Absolutely.
The ways things are going we all need to embrace what joy is available in the here and now.
And if someone does make a decision that's it's in the the too hard basket, better to own that decision and acknowledge it wasn't worth the effort. There is no shame in deciding a hobby isn't for you.
Bro, in a few more years, batteries will be lighter, electronics will be smaller and cameras will be more powerful. Soon, you'll be able to make a drone from a few basic parts, some online firmware and a 3d printer that's so small it'll never be noticed. The FAA can require ID beacons and real-time tracking but people will find a way around it.
The FAA is actually kinda fair. The problem is the state and local bureaucrats who think they can pass insanely restrictive laws and police departments who are all too quick to enforce them. I might start making something like those 1st Amendment audit videos but for drones.
The FAA is actually kinda fair. The problem is the state and local bureaucrats who think they can pass insanely restrictive laws and police departments who are all too quick to enforce them. I might start making something like those 1st Amendment audit videos but for drones.
seilerbird
Member
I am new here and I am starting out with a $99 drone to see how it goes. If it is all gloom and doom then I will forget about it and laugh off the $99. If I fall in love with the hobby I will get an expensive one. I have no idea how restrictive this hobby is but I live in an RV park on a small lake. I doubt there are restrictions here.
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