Why should commercial operators need a more elaborate license than hobbyists.

[Lady Rover]

One thing that makes no sense to me, as long the operation happens below 100m and within legal areas, why should commercial operators need a more elaborate license than hobbyists flying in the same area.

A weight limit above say 2kg over which you need a more elaborate license makes sense, due to the damage the larger birds can inflict.

Commercial license for smaller drones are pointless in my eyes.

Commercial operators tend to be more experienced than hobbyists, why would they need a more elaborate license?

In my eyes the requirements for a commercial license for taking pictures with a Mavic or similar are simply a way to protect people who have already spend money on a course and keep the course/training schools happy.
Sounds like they have a good lobby.

Luckily you can fly without a licence & commercially over here if your drone is below 2kg.

More legal requirements will not prevent things like in Gatwick. If you are determined to break the law, you will not be deterred.

Only active countermeasures will prevent this sort of thing.

 

[zocalo]

Professional liability. If it all goes sideways they are much more likely to face more expensive civil suits, etc. so having a more elaborate license that demonstrates a certain level of competence actually works in their favour.

Yes, there's undeniably some industry protectionism involved as well, but ultimately it comes down to existing legislation being out of date. The CAA administers the UK's airspace, and they have a simple requirement that *any* commerical operation in the UK's airspace requires a commercial license, specifically the PfCO for drones. The upshot of this is that UK operators without a PfCO technically cannot even post footage to a monetized YouTube feed or similar without breaching the regs. A PfCO also takes the best part of a week and £1000 to obtain, which is clearly far too high a bar for casual pilots who just want to make a little beer money from their footage.

We're due new legislation in the UK, includling mandatory registration of drones over a certain size, in November 2019. Hopefully there will also be some allowances made on casual commercial use of footage shot from smaller drones that might be flown by hobbyists/enthusiasts at the same time (a "PfCO Lite" maybe), but I don't think the wording is even close to final yet, especially after the events at Gatwick.

 

[Meta4]

One thing that makes no sense to me, as long the operation happens below 100m and within legal areas, why should commercial operators need a more elaborate license than hobbyists flying in the same area.

That idea comes from old thinking by aviation administration bodies trying to think of a drone as just another airplane and applying conventional airplane ideas to drones.
They have always required a higher standard of training and licensing for commercial aviation, and that makes sense.
You want the guy up front of a 787 to have good qualifications and experience.
But that philosophy just falls apart when you try to apply it to toy quadcopters, particularly when there's no great difference between using one commercially or recreationally.
It makes no sense at all that it's completely legal to fly and take photographs but photographing for someone else makes the flight illegal.

If you want to see something ridiculous, consider that in the US, to use your Phantom or Mavic for a bit of real estate photography, you need a security check.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/...undergo-background-checks-under-new-faa-rules
Umm ... whatever for?
I guess those evil minded dudes are only going to want a commercial licence before carrying out their nefarious schemes, so that should stop them from causing any trouble.