I flew a couple of times today, in the South of France.
Before coming on this trip, I researched their rules and got myself registered and put the pilot registration number on my M2P.
The DSAC, which is the French equivalent of the FAA, publishes this map for drone pilots:
www.geoportail.gouv.fr
You can search for specific cities and you will find that any good sized town, from a mountain village of a few hundred people to Paris all have NFZs over it. They don't want you to fly over people and certainly not over populated areas.
So I studied the map and found some places, typically in smaller villages, you can go maybe a .5 to 1 kilometer outside the village limits to fly. At least the GeoPortail map will show clear zones -- no red, no yellow, no orange.
So that's what I did today, pulled off a road running south of the village of Gordes, which is perched on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding valley. Clear zone but I was close to the red NFZ areas so I basically flew straight up, maybe moved at most a couple hundred meters and took pictures and a couple of videos where I'm not moving that much but just panning.
Then I drove an hour to Les Baux de Provence, again a stunning locale, a medieval fortress on a rock, again overlooking plains and what were once marshes. I flew from a point above the village, to the north, which again shows clear in GeoPortail. Now I was in a regional park and maybe there were park rules prohibiting drones but I didn't find it on the park website.
One thing that was interesting was that it warned my I was over the max altitude of 120 meters. Well that's true but I was taking off from about 600 meters above sea level. So I didn't try to fly much higher. In fact I flew below the launching point, just to get a closer look at the village of Les Baux.
But DJI Go made me check a disclaimer the I was entering some kind of restricted zone and that I was taking responsibility for flying there.
The map in the app. showed some orange cones and circles, compared to the GeoPortail showing a clear zone. I was probably at least 1 kilometer away from the village as the crow flies so I don't understand why DJI Go shows restrictions that GeoPortail doesn't.
Before coming on this trip, I researched their rules and got myself registered and put the pilot registration number on my M2P.
The DSAC, which is the French equivalent of the FAA, publishes this map for drone pilots:
Géoportail
Accédez à l'information géographique de référence : cartes, photographies aériennes, données géographiques
www.geoportail.gouv.fr
You can search for specific cities and you will find that any good sized town, from a mountain village of a few hundred people to Paris all have NFZs over it. They don't want you to fly over people and certainly not over populated areas.
So I studied the map and found some places, typically in smaller villages, you can go maybe a .5 to 1 kilometer outside the village limits to fly. At least the GeoPortail map will show clear zones -- no red, no yellow, no orange.
So that's what I did today, pulled off a road running south of the village of Gordes, which is perched on top of a hill overlooking the surrounding valley. Clear zone but I was close to the red NFZ areas so I basically flew straight up, maybe moved at most a couple hundred meters and took pictures and a couple of videos where I'm not moving that much but just panning.
Then I drove an hour to Les Baux de Provence, again a stunning locale, a medieval fortress on a rock, again overlooking plains and what were once marshes. I flew from a point above the village, to the north, which again shows clear in GeoPortail. Now I was in a regional park and maybe there were park rules prohibiting drones but I didn't find it on the park website.
One thing that was interesting was that it warned my I was over the max altitude of 120 meters. Well that's true but I was taking off from about 600 meters above sea level. So I didn't try to fly much higher. In fact I flew below the launching point, just to get a closer look at the village of Les Baux.
But DJI Go made me check a disclaimer the I was entering some kind of restricted zone and that I was taking responsibility for flying there.
The map in the app. showed some orange cones and circles, compared to the GeoPortail showing a clear zone. I was probably at least 1 kilometer away from the village as the crow flies so I don't understand why DJI Go shows restrictions that GeoPortail doesn't.
