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Drone Pilot Found Guilty and Fined


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The CAA website clearly states you need to register if the drone has a camera ( or weighs over 250 gram.)

 

 

 

"Registration and flyer ID

If your drone has a camera (unless it is a toy) or weighs 250g or more then you need to register with the CAA. You need to renew this registration every year. This is a registration of you as the operator rather than the drone itself."

Edited by kc
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3 minutes ago, kc said:

The CAA website clearly states you need to register if the drone has a camera ( or weighs over 250 gram.)

Considering that he appears to have been unaware of the BVLOS regulations and ignored or disabled the max height warnings, what makes you think that he was aware of the need to register or, if he was aware, that he took any notice of it ?

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The BBC reported  " The drone was a small one, which did not require a licence"

But some forum members speculated that he used FPV or posted pics on a website  - either of those would have needed a camera.    If he flew as far away as said then he would surely have needed a camera and therefore an Operators licence.     Has any forum member  flown far out using binoculars instead of a FPV camera?

Edited by kc
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6 minutes ago, kc said:

The BBC reported  " The drone was a small one, which did not require a licence"

But some forum members speculated that he used FPV or posted pics on a website  - either of those would have needed a camera.    If he flew as far away as said then he would surely have needed a camera and therefore an Operators licence.     Has any forum member  flown far out using binoculars instead of a FPV camera?

Hopefully not, since the regulations specifically prohibit the use of binoculars to maintain visual line of sight.

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4 hours ago, Tim Kearsley said:

Yes, of course.  I didn't think of that.  You've got to be a real first-class idiot to not only break the law but then tell everyone online that you did so!

There have been a number of videos shown on the news over recent years, of people (subsequently prosecuted) filming themselves driving at 130mph+ on a motorway, and posting the evidence on ‘social media’. Can’t fix stupid I guess.

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He did well to keep a drone in sight using binoculars. I find it difficult to keep static birds in view in my garden, about 20 m long. If located outside my garden, say in a tree, again I often never locate the bird. Obviously very talented.

 

I sometimes wonder how low some of the aircraft (mostly helicopters) are, that seem lower than 400 foot passing over our local area.  It is a pity the police do not encourage the flight controllers at the nearby airfield to encourage higher than some seem to fly.

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He did well to keep a drone in sight using binoculars. I find it difficult to keep static birds in view in my garden, about 20 m long. If located outside my garden, say in a tree, again I often never locate the bird. Obviously very talented.

 

My thought exactly Erfolg. Not only that he was holding a Tx and flying the drone. As I said earlier the report quoted at the start of the thread is a very poor piece of journalism. So much so |I think we can discount it as an accurate report of the court proceedings let alone the 'offences' themselves.

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On 31/01/2024 at 13:15, kc said:

What could he have altered on the 'drone controller ' to make it illegal?   Could it have been an illegal import that didn't comply with UK Tx power regulations?

 

He would surely have needed an operators licence if it had a camera on it even sub 250 gram so it cannot have been FPV flown correctly without an operaors licence.  

 

 

 

It's possible to flash a 3rd party firmware onto the controller so it transmits at a higher power output, thus extending the range.

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On 31/01/2024 at 20:06, Martin Dance 1 said:

A good eal more info on this on Geeksvarna live just streamed, worth watching

 

 

 

Interesting that that video is saying that the 'modification' was changing the power output to the US FCC setting.

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That video does contain a heck of a lot of additional information and it shows how the idiot who was prosecutred was caught, by posting his flight on social media. When the story first broke on the BBC I had assumed that hecould have possibly been flying from the open space some 500m SE of the Cathedral and did not beleive that there was any chance that he could have seen a small drone at that distance, enough to fly it using binoculars. Te original story said that he was three miles away from his take of point and that is what the mapping in the video that he posted online shows - he was essentially flying from his own back garden, flew three miles at 1500ft across a built up area. I think he got away very lightly in terms of the fines and it should have been much more than the several hundred quid that it cost him. Even moresoe when it appears that he had not just over-ridden the warnings in the software, he had altered the software to increase the power of the system to FCC levels, not limited to UK levels, in order to obtain that additional range. 

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Arguably, one problem with drones is that they require no piloting skills to fly them. . This leaves the operators free to explore any mischief which rattles around in their imaginations. 

 

Looking at the YouTube responses to the video, it seems there is a community of drone operators who are determined to flout the regulations. 

 

These rogue drone operators might be a minority but they certainly comes across as being a fairly big minority. 

 

If prosecutions keep appearing in the headlines, maybe the idiots will get the message and move on to another pastime. . . . . Fingers crossed. 

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Given that he cited inexperience and ignorance (or words to that effect), it's a shame the sentencing can't be revisited now this 'evidence' is in the public domain.

 

Also, it'd he great if the authorities more actively pursued the idiots on social media who not only flout the law, but encourage and enable others to do the same.

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35 minutes ago, GrumpyGnome said:

 

 

35 minutes ago, GrumpyGnome said:

 

Also, it'd he great if the authorities more actively pursued the idiots on social media who not only flout the law, but encourage and enable others to do the same.

  Not only drone flyers but motorbike's racing around housing estates and the ones off roading where they should not. I have been 4x4 off roading [ legally] for nearly 40 years and the action of "don't care idiots has resulted in the loss of places it was fine to go and sadly I see similar happening for legal flyers.

   As for policing recon the force would have to be at least twice the size it is now to have any chance. 

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1 hour ago, J D 8 said:

                

 

  Not only drone flyers but motorbike's racing around housing estates and the ones off roading where they should not. I have been 4x4 off roading [ legally] for nearly 40 years and the action of "don't care idiots has resulted in the loss of places it was fine to go and sadly I see similar happening for legal flyers.

   As for policing recon the force would have to be at least twice the size it is now to have any chance. 

Oh come on, anyone making a noise that isn't model related ?.

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