Looking for a spot
This time I was wondering if one of the parks not too far from my home would be a good place to fly my Phantom 3 drone. Because I have been there few times before and I noticed that during cold days there are no people in some parts of the park, I’m starting my little investigation to find out if bringing my drone there would not be a bad idea.
Area investigation
It is worth to mention that country is UK. Park I’m looking at is named “Beckenham Place Park”. Wikipedia says it is “public park”, so concerns about royal property should not be valid. Next place I look into is “No Fly Drones” website. Area is not falling under any airport airspace, nor restricted area. I have found one more useful resource on Google Play Store, application is called Drone Assist. When checking on the Drone Assist app, area is marked as “Caution”. Description advises to be mindful of pedestrians safety as well as that flying in the area may raise security, privacy or safety concerns.
Meeting the regulations
- At least 150m away from congested area? Yes.
- At least 50m away from people? Depends on the circumstances in the area. Fly only if the answer is Yes.
- At least 50m away from structure, vessel or vehicle? Yes
- Unmanned Aircraft take-off weight below 7kg? Yes, around 1300g
- Will I fly with commercial purpose? No
More things to check
- Is area royal property? No.
- Is it covered by airport airspace? No.
- Is it restricted area? No.
- What does “No Fly Drones” say? Nothing negative.
- Are there any alerts on “Drone Assist”? Caution.
- Added: local authority restrictions? Yes.
At this point I feel I’m at the dead end, this is how many people feel and keep posting online, being unable to find location for doing it safely and lawfully.
Finding people who fly
With a little bit of search on Facebook I’ve joined few drone owners groups and asked for advice there. I got responses quickly, people were helpful and provided more information. While it turned out I can not fly in Beckenham Place Park as it belongs to Lewisham Council and they have banned drones, people advised that there are some places around London where people fly drones legally – Flying Field in Richmond Park, some other parks where Councils haven’t banned flying drones from. Knowing Richmond being a Royal Park, I decided to find out wth the Royal Parks Administration if the field still officially exists and is safe and legal place to fly. So I emailed them. Response was disappointing, stating that you should fly without camera attached to your drone which is impossible with today’s consumer drones, furthermore what is the point of flying a drone and being not able to see from it’s point of view, and having ability to capture nice landscapes? According to the documents available, it is not stated anywhere that you can not fly your drone fitted with a camera there if you’re respecting people’s privacy.
About flying in Richmond
- Parks Administration: You should not fly drone fitted with camera (requirement not seen anywhere in further documents)
- Official document on Royal Parks website:
- Additional laws relating to privacy and photography also apply to drones.
- The flying of a drone becomes a prohibited act once a constable has asked a person to stop flying it or if a notice is displayed in a park stating it is a prohibited act.
- If a system has a camera or is equipped to record data it is an offence when without permission from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) a UAS is operated:
- Over or within 150 metres of any congested area or organised open assembly of more than 1000 persons
- Within 50 metres of any vessel, vehicle, person or structure not under the control of the person in charge of the aircraft
- During take-off or landing to be within 30 metres of any person unless they are under the control of the operator
Documents and regulations
Answer is NO by default, but
Judging from my number of experiences when I tried to get a confirmation that I am allowed to fly in one or the other location before doing so, the answer was 100% NO at all times. Which is confirmed by all of the people who have ever tried to ask before flying. However some people spend time and check the documents available online, doing a proper investigation of potential flight locations. Turns out some councils haven’t officially banned drones in their parks according to publicly available documents, therefore it leaves us an opportunity to be legal while flying our modern “birds”. We don’t want to become CAA licensed pilots just to be able to enjoy our non-profitable hobby where in anyway we’re trying to comply with all the regulations and restrictions fairly, in addition many of pilots having public liability insurance (with i.e. BMFA). Even becoming CAA licensed pilot does guarantee that you would be able to easily fly anywhere without weeks or months of paperwork and chasing for permissions.
All you need to do before flying: make sure local council has not banned this activity, also ensure you’re fair according to CAA regulations, Royal Properties, privacy and safe distance requirements. Plus if you can’t find anything officially prohibiting you from flying your drone in that particular location, you should not be afraid to do so.
Parks byelaws
Below I will list the link(s) to websites where flying drones are not prohibited by local byelaws. List to be appended as my discoveries continue.
