Police Common Sense and Society in General

[pogbellies]

I have to take my hat off to Norwich Police for their common sense in dealing with this.

While I wouldn’t condone flouting the law, the decision by the police to take no further action in this case has to be commended. It looks to me as though the operator was flying from a pretty open area judging by the footage (and a glance at Google Maps) and just wanted a shot of the beautiful buildings.

What concerns me far more is that 1. somebody felt the need to report it, even though there appears to have been little risk and 2. Why on earth the BBC felt it newsworthy on their news app given that (for example) driving offences which have resulted in injuries and convictions often do not make it into their news reporting.

(Edit) It is also annoying that the BBC have used what appears to be Drone Assist to indicate that the operator was flying too close to the airport, when in fact they were outside the FRZ and ATZ and well over 5km from the airport.

Far too many in the UK see themselves as surrogate police and are only too keen to create misery for others while turning a blind eye to greater wrongdoing under their noses. As for the BBC this just proves their lack of impartiality where hobbyist UAVs are concerned.

Rant over!

 

[gnirtS]

BBC aren't great at facts.
It seems they've taken a clueless reporter whose installed Drone Assist, saw red and decided to make an article. Which is incorrect.
As you saw, its outside the flight restriction zone for the airport even on the NATs app. Its inside the norwich CTA but thats irrelevant. No laws against that.

It does highlight a problem with the DroneAssist app though - its a modified version of a real flying app and as such the default displays show a lot more things such as ATZ/MATZ/TMAs etc which arent applicable to drone flying.
So a reporter or even a normal drone user who has no training in airspace will install it, leave it on default and see a lot of red and warnings. The app imho needs to be grossly simplified and tailored towards a no-knowledge base drone user as a default install. It also needs SkyWise bulletins to be integrated (such as GPS/Drone jamming trials etc whic arent NOTAMd).

Currently unless you already understand airspace regulations and caveats you dont understand enough to get the DroneAssist app to actually display correct information.

That aside, the flight was almost certainly illegal. The middle of Norwich is by anyones definition a congested area so the 150m rule and *no overflight* would apply.



There is no way the operator can comply with the ANO there regarding operation areas and avoiding congested areas so yes the flight was illegal but not because of what the BBC says.

I can quite see why people would call the police - people call the police for anything and everything from pizza delivery, cats sitting on drives or someone burping in public. Its normal.

Given the lack of UK police resources (you generally now wont even get them to attend if your house is broken into etc) they target more and more social media because its "easy". You can do it in the office and usually identifying the culprit is easy because they give their name.
Following up because someone offended someone on Twitter is an easy tick in the box for a service that hasnt got the manpower to do a lot of actual crime fighting (not their fault, they lack the resources and the political correctness gone mad society high up encourages such a thing).

That said, the handled it in a sensible, mature way. They've educated the culprit so hopefully its problem solved. If they're satisfied the guy didn't know the laws, wasn't deliberately violating them then theres no public interest in doing any more. Neither side would benefit going further.

If anything the UK police are a bit too "nice". This incident ( Drone seized by police on day of Wales Airshow ) where a person clearly know what he was doing flying a drone *at* an airshow, *over* a large crowd, *at the display datum* to me would or should warrant prosecution.
As it was they confiscated and returned the drone. However in this case it was a deliberate breach of the laws and common sense so id have liked to have seen a prosecution from it to deter others.

I've had exactly 1 interaction with the UK police regarding drone flying 3 weeks after a flight due to someone "being able to see his garden" on a facebook post. They turned up, aplogised for having to turn up but they have to eventually to close the log. Without asking for any documentation they stated they'd seen the image, were satisfied there was absolutely nothing illegal at all in the flight or image and quite happily stated to keep flying and taking those sort of images and just said how much its a waste of their time having to attend in the first place.

I think the UK police in general are pretty good, if you're legal they're on your side, if you're illegal accidentally with no real effects on others they'll educate.

The BBC on the other hand are useless. This is the place that'll gleefully accept any and all AirProx reports as 100% guaranteed its a drone with no checking for sanity, physical possibilities or anything else. I guess fact checking and research would take too long and delay a story.

Its not just drone related - ive been in a few places where their reportage was at polar opposites to what was happening on the ground and after looking into things found out their "reporting" quite often was quite literally trawling twitter for "scene reports" and never actually going there. Don't even get me started on their Brexit agenda!

 

[pao1os]

That aside, the flight was almost certainly illegal. The middle of Norwich is by anyones definition a congested area so the 150m rule and *no overflight* would apply.

There is no way the operator can comply with the ANO there regarding operation areas and avoiding congested areas so yes the flight was illegal but not because of what the BBC says.

Agreed, still good to see the police acting sensibly.

I can quite see why people would call the police - people call the police for anything and everything from pizza delivery, cats sitting on drives or someone burping in public. Its normal.

Yes I can see that its normal, however it shouldn't be. Why people feel the need to cause trouble was always beyond me. To my mind anyone doing this does not have enough to keep them busy or worry about, still I suspect that may be about to change.

I've had exactly 1 interaction with the UK police regarding drone flying 3 weeks after a flight due to someone "being able to see his garden" on a facebook post.

I take it that his garden wasn't visible in Google Maps, or from the road to anyone walking past then. What an idiot. This rather proves my point.

The BBC on the other hand are useless. This is the place that'll gleefully accept any and all AirProx reports as 100% guaranteed its a drone with no checking for sanity, physical possibilities or anything else. I guess fact checking and research would take too long and delay a story.

Its not just drone related - ive been in a few places where their reportage was at polar opposites to what was happening on the ground and after looking into things found out their "reporting" quite often was quite literally trawling twitter for "scene reports" and never actually going there. Don't even get me started on their Brexit agenda!

Wholeheartedly agree. Happy flying!

 

[pagan1]

I have to take my hat off to Norwich Police for their common sense in dealing with this.

While I wouldn’t condone flouting the law, the decision by the police to take no further action in this case has to be commended. It looks to me as though the operator was flying from a pretty open area judging by the footage (and a glance at Google Maps) and just wanted a shot of the beautiful buildings.

What concerns me far more is that 1. somebody felt the need to report it, even though there appears to have been little risk and 2. Why on earth the BBC felt it newsworthy on their news app given that (for example) driving offences which have resulted in injuries and convictions often do not make it into their news reporting.

(Edit) It is also annoying that the BBC have used what appears to be Drone Assist to indicate that the operator was flying too close to the airport, when in fact they were outside the FRZ and ATZ and well over 5km from the airport.

Far too many in the UK see themselves as surrogate police and are only too keen to create misery for others while turning a blind eye to greater wrongdoing under their noses. As for the BBC this just proves their lack of impartiality where hobbyist UAVs are concerned.

Rant over!

The BBC has lack of impartiality ,IT is with out doubt the Bias /Broad casting /Corporation, hence BBC. Sad to say

 

[Thomas B]

I have to take my hat off to Norwich Police for their common sense in dealing with this.

While I wouldn’t condone flouting the law, the decision by the police to take no further action in this case has to be commended. It looks to me as though the operator was flying from a pretty open area judging by the footage (and a glance at Google Maps) and just wanted a shot of the beautiful buildings.

What concerns me far more is that 1. somebody felt the need to report it, even though there appears to have been little risk and 2. Why on earth the BBC felt it newsworthy on their news app given that (for example) driving offences which have resulted in injuries and convictions often do not make it into their news reporting.

(Edit) It is also annoying that the BBC have used what appears to be Drone Assist to indicate that the operator was flying too close to the airport, when in fact they were outside the FRZ and ATZ and well over 5km from the airport.

Far too many in the UK see themselves as surrogate police and are only too keen to create misery for others while turning a blind eye to greater wrongdoing under their noses. As for the BBC this just proves their lack of impartiality where hobbyist UAVs are concerned.

Rant over!

This apparently was widely publicized in the UK. Anyone with a link the article/info referred to in post #1 by the OP ( @pogbellies ).

 

[pogbellies]

This apparently was widely publicized in the UK. Anyone with a link the article/info referred to in post #1 by the OP ( @pogbellies ).

The link is under the word “this”.

 

[gnirtS]

This apparently was widely publicized in the UK. Anyone with a link the article/info referred to in post #1 by the OP ( @pogbellies ).

Wasn't widely publicised - the only place i saw it anywhere was that BBC article. Most likely it was on the local BBC regional news and made it onto the main website.