Philip Lewis 3

Posted by Martin Dance 1 on 10/05/2019 14:54:08: What do you think? I think the responsibility of the operator can only extend to ensuring the drone is airworthy and the pilot has the laughable CAA license to fly, I can't see why it should extend beyond that.

So it's not just a database which EASA requires it needs to fit in with the future plans for autonomous drones (Amazon and Google) the so called Unified traffic management system where we see everything operating in the air and we know who is operating it. Well that right there means we will be required to have transponders that identify us in all of our aircraft. It seems to me that we are paying for the set up of this whole commercial operation and what of course really sticks in the throat is that Amazon and Googles "chief financial officer" will only pay £16.50 despite owning potentially thousands of drones!

But would the registration scheme have prevented this guy from doing what he did? If not then what is the point of the scheme? Actually I think it would make it worse, someone with that much arrogance would then be saying "I've registered and PASSED the required exam so I'm LEGALLY allowed to fly it, the CAA said so and they gave me a license."

Nor does anyone else, you still have the legal right to use it. Wrong, the CAA regulates it and anything that flies even a paper plane does so under an exemption from the CAA. ATC above 10,000 feet LOS below but it's all regulated by the CAA. Police police the ground (sometimes) but the CAA police the sky.

Absolutely. What about the clubs that actually own their land? Simple, you own the land only not any rights to the sky above it. Edited By Philip Lewis 3 on 07/05/2019 21:50:03

Matty, I seriously doubt it will come to this but I never mentioned anything about involving any club (I know what you mean about AGM's, avoid like a plague), no if you were to do this you would only allow (being the company director it is your company) people you know and trust and could be from numerous different clubs. The club they fly from has nothing to do with it.

Matty, it would cost me about £50.00 to set up a new Ltd company, being a Ltd company that never traded it would have no assets and no income so the only assets would be the planes it owns for which of course there is no market anymore, there would also be no liability on me personally.

Philip, the BMFA has in excess of 30k members..... LMA about 2k to 3k I think Edited By Percy Verance on 01/05/2019 21:53:16 Miss type, should have read And what the heck will they do if say only 15,000 register but they know for sure that the BMFA alone has 35,000 members. i.e. they know that 20,000 BMFA members haven't registered.

So ill thought out to be unbelievable, in a lot of cases where the drone operator is not the pilot the drone operator will be a Ltd company, this simply in no way accounts for this unless your Ltd company has to be 18 years old (and mine is not 18 yet). Additionally most clubs fly from from private flying sites, so given that trespass is illegal how are they intending to check on pilots flying from a private site where permission is not granted to enter? And what the heck will they do if say only 15,000 register but they know for sure that the BMFA alone has 15,000 members, they aren't going to get round GPFR because of a missing fee it needs to be far more serious than that like for suspected terrorist offences.

Posted by Percy Verance on 01/05/2019 20:22:45: Philip The key point here perhaps, may be the fact that as the law stands ( or is about to stand), you wouldn't be registered, and therefore shouldn't be flying? That's how the insurance _ unsurprisingly - will see it. I disagree, no insurer is going to refuse your claim against say hitting their car with your "Drone" just because you or more technically the drone owner (which might not be you) hadn't paid your fee. Now if you were drone racing in a street completely unlawfully and hit a car maybe they would think twice because the unlawful flying actually was a contributory cause to the accident. That said the only people could actually say would be the insurance provider and their most likely response would be that that not paying the £16.50 would not necessarily invalidate your insurance but that each case would be treated on it's own merits, in other words I doubt you would ever get a clear cut answer to the question

The insurance issue is I think relatively straightforward, in effect our insurance is actually third party liability, why would an insurer refuse to pay out a claim to an injured third party because you hadn't registered (you can do the online test for free to prove competence). Think of car insurance (which will almost certainly also say you are not covered for unlawful acts), a drunk driver (for which he is subsequently convicted) crashes into another car, the insurer would always pay out to the innocent third party but because driving whilst drunk they may very well invalidate the comprehensive part and refuse to provide cover for the drunk drivers crashed car. The unlawful acts clause is a clause that is rarely invoked, especially against an innocent third parties claim.

What do you reckon? **LINK** Page 7, section 5.1, paragraph 'Activities'. I'm sure all will be made clear in due course. That is the BMFA's interpretation of the policy wording but the actual wording of the policy will prevail if the interpretation is wrong. Bear in mind all of these quotes were written prior to this latest issue so do not take it into account, they can of course be changed!   Edited By Philip Lewis 3 on 30/04/2019 23:19:56

I hope the energy that has gone into this forum thread continues in reporting Illegal fliers to the authority and making sure they are appropriately fined. Sadly I doubt very much that it will. This is a good point, and who do we report them to anyway? The CAA or the Police? Then let us see exactly what action they take and how they enforce it, I doubt that they will pursue it with the same vigour of a reported drink driver though!

Posted by Cuban8 on 30/04/2019 21:55:30: Posted by Philip Lewis 3 on 30/04/2019 21:51:32: Posted by Martin Harris on 30/04/2019 21:45:48: Isn't breaking the ANO a criminal offence? In your example, you must have passed a driving test and are not disqualified in order for your insurance to be valid - this proviso is on every insurance certificate I have ever been issued. Speeding is also a criminal offence. If the policy covers you to fly you are covered unless you are breaking a clause in the contract, the law has nothing to do with it. Hmmm....that opening paragraph re being lawful sounds very much like a clause to me. My original post was really related to earlier posts that said you can't be insured if breaking the law because you can, (as I have made clear), as I said latter it would need a clause to be in the contract, I haven't read the policy (I just don't have that much time) but if a clause exists then the clause would be operative, also depends who you are insured with and what the wording of the particular policy is, obviously. It's a murky subject and wide open to interpretation, it would be difficult in a court of law for an insurer to bring in to play a clause rendering the insurance invalid if the event broken was not a contributing factor to the claim, in other words the non payment of the fee had nothing to do with the event claimed upon which of course it never would, different subject altogether if breaking another law which if obeyed would have avoided or could have avoided the incident. Used to be covered under the unfair contract terms act but now covered under a different act I believe.     Edited By Philip Lewis 3 on 30/04/2019 22:18:59

Posted by Martin Harris on 30/04/2019 21:45:48: Isn't breaking the ANO a criminal offence? In your example, you must have passed a driving test and are not disqualified in order for your insurance to be valid - this proviso is on every insurance certificate I have ever been issued. Speeding is also a criminal offence. If the policy covers you to fly you are covered unless you are breaking a clause in the contract, the law has nothing to do with it.

Well as it happens I own the company I work for, it’s a Ltd company so a totally separate legal entity to me, guess which legal entity now owns the planes that I fly? On the insurance being invalid if an illegal act issue that's wrong, do you think you are uninsured if you are speeding or uninsured if you haven't paid your road tax? You would not be uninsured whilst breaking a civil not criminal law unless they put a clause in the contract saying so, in which case let’s hope they don't! Edited By Philip Lewis 3 on 30/04/2019 21:29:18 Edited By Philip Lewis 3 on 30/04/2019 21:31:48

I think that you are looking at this the wrong way, I'm a club training officer and I fly FrSky (always have). If it's your model it's going to have you're FrSky RX in it isn't it? That means that it's bound to your TX and the second TX (the club trainers) will be the buddy box TX. FrSky (Open TX) will buddy up with Futaba, Hi Tec, Spektrum and of course itself, you just need to go into the trainer settings and select calibrate and for instance with Spektrum use a multiplier of 1.2 on all channels (as Spektrum 100% is FrSky 80% and that's it done. It can even cope with you flying mode 2 and an instructor who flies mode 1. Or am I missing the point here?