Drones are becoming a lot more popular these days. With many adventure sports participants looking for more creative ways to document their adventures, there isn’t much that can come close to the sorts of epic aerial shots that were once the preserve of large budget feature films or broadcast documentaries.
However as anyone who watches the news will know, drones are coming under ever more scrutiny by the authorities. Worse still is that many people who buy these aircraft are unaware that there are laws governing their use.
I should say at this point that I do apologise if this article comes off sounding like a stern Government information film from the 1970s! However I hope that it will give readers more insight into these aspects of drone use and its relevance to kayaking!
On the surface it might seem that the regulations are restrictive, but in reality they are there for safety. Both yours and the people around you. Even a DJI Phantom can cause some pretty serious injuries if it crashed into someone. And as one certain singer discovered recently, an Inspire 1 can have a rather nasty effect on hands!
Flying safely:
There are a number of laws governing Drone use in the UK. Most other countries such as the US have very similar rules and they make for a good basis for flying safely with good common sense. The penalties can be quite high if you are caught flaunting them.
The first thing to remember is that although it is tempting to fly such aircraft as far and as high as you can, the current UK legislation is that you can only fly a maximum of 500m horizontally away from the pilot. You must keep visual line of sight at all times. In the case of a small aircraft such as the Phantom you will likely lose visual line of sight at 120m. In other words just because the maximum restriction is 500m, if you have a smaller aircraft you are likely to lose visual orientation well before that limit. Watching the live camera feed is not classed as visual line of sight!
Altitude wise you cannot fly more than 120m above the point of take off. In other words, if you took off from the top of Ben Nevis, you could fly 120m above the position you took off from. But if you took off from the base of the mountain you would not be able to fly to the top of it. You must also have good, clear 360 degree visibility, so flying in cloud is most definitely out of the question.
Once you fly an aircraft, and they are classed as aircraft, not toys, by the aviation authorities, with a camera attached it falls under surveillance laws. This comes with its own set of restrictions. With sub 7kg aircraft such as the DJI Phantom and Inspire 1 you must stay 50m horizontally away from any person or structure who is not directly under your control or permission.
Flying over the crowds at an event therefore, unless each and everybody there had given expressed permission to do so (ie you cannot just announce it on the tannoy or put up a sign), would be illegal. You cannot fly over crowds of 1000 people or more no matter what. You could however film them from 150m away over the river (assuming you weren’t flying over someone in a boat who hadn’t given you direct permission to do so).
You must also stay 50m away from any built up area. There are slightly different regulations for aircraft above 7kg, but most Unsponsored readers will be using devices like the Phantom and Inspire.
These may seem restrictive, but they are for the safety of all concerned. These are sophisticated devices and they can and do go wrong!
Other things to bear in mind are aspects such as getting landowners permission to take off and land on their property. But more importantly you should be aware commercial implications of creating and distributing footage. This is an area in which many people are not aware of at all.
If you or another company uses your footage for commercial gain, then you need what is called a Permission For Aerial Work (PFAW) from the CAA. Please note that commercial gain or “valuable consideration” as the CAA phrases it is not just monetary return. If for example a hypothetical kayak company, Bright Pink Kayaks Inc, decided to use their sponsored paddlers aerial footage in a kayak promo, even if that paddler hadn’t been paid, this would still be classed as valuable consideration because the kayak company stands to gain sales or even publicity from the footage.
This extends to a sponsored paddler using footage for their own means, but placing their sponsors logo on the video. As soon as that video becomes branded, then it falls under the auspices of valuable consideration. In fact so all encompassing is the legalisation that even putting your unbranded video onto a website with adverts in the website sidebar etc would fall foul of this rule.
Draconian though this may seem it is, alas, the law. Gaining a PFAW may seem to be cost prohibitive, but it is very useful for learning the safety aspects of flight, and you will come away with a totally different perspective of how you fly. You will need to attend a ground school, where you will learn about aviation law and other aspects related to flying drones. You will then need to pass a flight operations assessment, as well as writing an operations manual before applying to the CAA for your PFAW. All told, not including the cost of your drone, this could be around £1500 of expenditure. But at places such as the Aerial Motion Pictures ICARUS course you will be learning from some of the best in the business, many of them ex RAF pilots of many years experience.
It does seem restrictive, but as I say, this is the law, and there are many things that you will not be aware of when picking up a Phantom and simply going out and flying it. Safe battery maintenance for one (Lipo batteries are notorious for going up in flames if they aren’t properly dealt with), being able to read aviation maps so that you know of any nearby airfields, restricted airspace, or high frequency transmitters in the area that might interfere with the control of your aircraft. Even power lines can have a drastic effect on control which could lead to a flyaway. These are potential issues that many new flyers are totally unaware of.
Now it would be all to easy to say that all of these rules and regulations are unnecessary and that you can’t be bothered to follow them. But unfortunately thinking of these devices as toys and flying them irresponsibly has lead to a number of well publicised incidents. Only recently there have been near misses with passenger aircraft and other cases of people flying where they shouldn’t. One incident resulted in a fine of £1800, and another with a total cost of £4400 for the offender.
If we take into account that where kayaking is concerned we fly in places like Scotland and Wales where military aircraft may well be performing unexpected low altitude manoeuvres, and we should be able to appreciate the need for vigilance even in remote areas.
When all is said and done, these aircraft are not toys, even though they may look like it. Doing things safely doesn’t take a whole lot of effort. After all you wouldn’t risk your mates life by rushing or skipping setting up safety on a dangerous rapid! And being more aware of how these things work will simply mean that you won’t be endangering everyone around you.
Words and pictures: Simon Wyndham
The radius reduces to 30m to for takeoff and landing, too.
Yes, this is true. Though I really wanted to get the gist over as the fine detail might put a lot of readers to sleep! 🙂 But you are absolutely right.
‘This extends to a sponsored paddler using footage for their own means, but placing their sponsors logo on the video. As soon as that video becomes branded, then it falls under the auspices of valuable consideration’
I have seen the opposite to this on other sites. This was on an SUAS guidance document
‘Generation of self-marketing material to display an object, event or other activity. An
individual or business would not usually be considered to be doing aerial work if the flight is
provided only for their own use. Imagery generated in this way should not be sold to
another party. Example: A charity, educational establishment, local authority or business acquires a
drone which is used to provide aerial imagery for incorporation into their own promotional
material. As long as this imagery is not sold on, this is unlikely to be deemed aerial work.’
Please could you clarify this. Also posting images on your own social media pages but not offering aerial work or selling images – is this valuable consideration?
I do not know what the SUAS site you are referring to is, however they wrong if they issued the guidance you mentioned above. The only rules that matter are those set out by the CAA, and they are quite clear in their guidance. In fact the old “Permission For Aerial Work” is now called “Permission for Commercial Operations”, which takes account of the wider application. The key phrase here is “valuable consideration”. By putting, say, your sponsors logo into a video, that is clearly advertising, so falls foul of the laws because they are gaining promotion. But also, by self promoting as a sponsored paddler, you are also gaining valuable consideration by way of getting access to equipment and gear (even if discounted or prototypes) in return for promoting the brand.
Unfortunately this is the law, and is gone into quite extensively when you take a ground school course that goes towards gaining legit permissions.
If you were merely taking footage of your holiday, and just posted it up for general interest for your friends on Facebook, with nothing to do with sponsorship etc, then this would be fine. But if you then gave that footage to a sponsor to use, or added their logos etc, then this would again fall foul of the law. A business taking footage most certainly falls foul of the law if they use it for self promotion in any way, because they stand to gain trade or recognition leading to trade as a result, which comes under “valuable consideration”.
It may seem harsh and restrictive, but that is the law I’m afraid.