Drone Information

Drone research and info

First of all, pretty much everybody flying a camera equipped drone in the UK now needs to be registered with the CAA, and have a Flyer ID and an Operator ID.

Flyer ID - Read a booklet, understand the basic rules, take a multiple choice test of 40 questions. It's free and quite interesting.

Operator ID - Fill in a form and pay £12.34 - Then your drone must be clearly marked with this ID.

Further qualifications

I'm taking this fairly seriously, so want to follow all formal routes wherever I can and get any relevant certifications etc along the way.

There are multiple classes of drone and each have their own requirements, but initially I will be focused on the lowest - Class 0 or UK0 - where only the basic Flyer ID and Operator ID are required. However I will be looking ahead to gain a more advanced RPC in the future.

Elsewhere you'll see many references to GVC, but this is being replaced by the RPC.
Don't forget to check out the Glossary for all these acronyms!

Flight restrictions

In Class 0 (ie: a camera drone weighing 249g) there are very few restrictions in the UK.
You can fly over buildings, roads, people etc - just not over crowds of people.
You must not exceed an altitude of 120m, and of course you must keep clear of restricted zones likes airports, military bases and so on.
You must always keep your drone within a visual line of site.

Some councils will have bylaws prohibiting the take-off or landing of drones in their parks and open spaces, however they cannot prevent take-off or landing on a public pavement, or other private land where you have the owners permission, and once airborne you can fly over the 'prohibited' space.

See - CAA: Where you can fly

Which drone?

It was inevitable that this would lead me to buy a drone, and the time has come. I probably could have waited a while longer, but the summer is ending, winter isn't too far away and getting out on calm dry days will get a bit harder. So why not, let's do it!

Obviously i've already been looking at the likely options - specs, prices, deals etc. So I kind of know where i'm heading. I like mainstream well known brands, even if they're not strictly the best for the money or whatever, I just like the comfort of being predictable. So no surprises that DJI is pretty much the only thing I've considered.

But which one? This was tricky. I had a price in mind and initially thought that the Mini 5 Pro would be ok - although more than I had expected to spend. But then came the options, which controller, spare batteries, charger and so on.

There was a cheaper option - the Lito X1, and the specs were largely similar, just a few key differences mainly around the camera and the Lidar capabilities. But I still wanted the Mini 5.

I strongly considered the remote control unit, the amount i'd need spare batteries and how much I would really notice the differences between the specs - especially as a beginner. And all by itself, common sense took over. The 5 Pro package was looking like £900 and the Lito X1 came to £600.

A few more considerations - like there's no SDK! (does it matter?) This will make waypoint flights a tiny bit trickier to set up, but I can cope with that. So it's time... 'Add to basket'