Few questions on the operating of drones

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), commonly known as a drone and also referred to as an unpiloted aerial vehicle and a remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is an aircraft without a human pilot aboard.

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Bluepoole
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Few questions on the operating of drones

Unread post by Bluepoole »

Apologies if the questions I am posing here have been asked before (if so, please direct me to relevant threads)

Do toy drones (i.e. a R1,000 Shox drone bought off Takealot) fall under the operating rules of drones (may not be flown higher than 120m, not within 10km of an airport, etc)?

From what size or capability is a drone not considered a toy one anymore?

Then a specific question - if a professional photographer uses a drone like a DJI Mavic at a wedding venue to shoot video footage of the wedding, does he need a drone license or not? Does he have to adhere to operating rules of a drone? And lastly, could the wedding venue get into trouble for allowing him to operate the drone, if he does need a license and need to adhere to operating rules, but he doesn't have a license?
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Re: Few questions on the operating of drones

Unread post by WarrenGardiner »

Bluepoole wrote: Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:09 pm Do toy drones (i.e. a R1,000 Shox drone bought off Takealot) fall under the operating rules of drones (may not be flown higher than 120m, not within 10km of an airport, etc)?

From what size or capability is a drone not considered a toy one anymore?

Then a specific question - if a professional photographer uses a drone like a DJI Mavic at a wedding venue to shoot video footage of the wedding, does he need a drone license or not? Does he have to adhere to operating rules of a drone? And lastly, could the wedding venue get into trouble for allowing him to operate the drone, if he does need a license and need to adhere to operating rules, but he doesn't have a license?
A toy drone is defined as one that is designed for the use of being played with by children. If it says on the box its a camera drone its a camera drone(not a toy drone), if it says that its a kids drone then it is a toy drone.

In general toy drones have a limited range(+- 30 meters) so there is some leniency there about where you can fly them, and since they are generally designed to be child friendly they are not considered particularly dangerous to general public or air traffic.There has been no real clarity from CAA on any size or capabilities for this classification. Fortunately the regulations don't insist that toy drones have to be operated by children, so adults can fly toy drones too if they want to.

Technically, whenever a professional photographer uses any drone (even a toy drone) to make money, they need a licence. If however, the photographer were not being paid, he would have to get permission from the property owners(wedding venue), not fly within 50 meters of people without their permission, not fly within 50 meters of public roads, and not fly higher than anything within 300meters of the drone(rooftops, trees etc.)

Surprisingly, you can actually get some half decent photographs at 50 meters from the action, but even better if you just ask everyone present if its okay to fly the drone. Height isn't really an issue here, high altitude photos are quite boring.
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Re: Few questions on the operating of drones

Unread post by snoopy »

Its the seller or re-sellers obligation to inform you as the buyer, of the applicable regulations. New and second hand drone sales.

A smaller Shox drones cant operate further than 30m from you. So its a toy. But non-commercial operator regulation still applies as mentioned above...even if only for personal use. The general flight regulations apply to all drones, as do the laws about overflying another persons private property without their permission.

http://www.caa.co.za/Pages/RPAS/Sale%20 ... 0RPAS.aspx
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