One of the most popular questions UK viewers send me surrounds flights over people and
since the new UK drone rules came into place, what are the rules are specifically for the
drone they are flying. This video will give you clear and simple guidance to hobbyist
flyers
(INTRO MUSIC)
As regular viewers of Geeksvana will be aware, we have worked to bring you a series of videos
focused on the new drone rules in the UK which have come into effect since the start of 2021.
These rules allow hobbyists to fly their drones in many situations which would not previously
have been allowed. Flying our smaller drones in towns and villages is possible now we are
allowed to fly in congested areas, depending on what drone you are flying with which certificate.
To find out more you can watch our UK drone rules playlist, which is linked in the description
and to get more updates like this one, hit the subscribe button.
We can probably all understand why flying over people can be an issue so it is to be
expected that there will be some rules surrounding who you can fly over. To make things simple,
we are talking about one subcategory of airspace where flights over people by hobbyists is
possible, which is A1. This airspace is close and over people usually in a congested area.
Drones which are either under 250g legacy drones, which means anything purchased before
the end of 2022, like your DJI Mini 2 and alike or even self build drones which are
sub 250g but they do need to have a maximum speed of 19m/s, can fly over uninvolved people.
So for instance when you are out flying your drone in the park and you fly across to capture
some footage of the trees or waterfall etc, then you can fly over people to reach that
position with a sub 250g legacy drone.
Once we have the C label system in place, you will be able to fly C0 drones over people
as well. C0 will have a sort of subclass in that both toy and non-toy sub 250g drones
can hold a C0 label but both will be permitted to fly over uninvolved people.
There will also be a new class of drone, C1 which will be allowed to take flights over
people which are not intentional. Sounds strange doesn t it, unintentional flights over people.
Essentially what this means is that the new C1 class drones, which will be less than 900g
MTOM or emit 90 joules of energy when hitting a persons head can be flown over people in
unexpected circumstances. So for instance, going back to the example of flying in a park.
If you were flying a C1 drone and someone walks out from the trees and under the path
of your drone, as long as you take appropriate and immediate action to avoid them, your flight
over them is not deemed illegal. There is also an allowance for A2 CofC holders to fly
sub 500g legacy drones like the Parrot Anafi in the A1 airspace but with no intentional
flights over people.
So a legacy drone which is sub 250g like the DJI Mini 2 or similar can be flown over people.
This will be joined eventually by the C0 label drones once released. A2 CofC holders even
with a C labelled drone will only be able to get to within a maximum of 5metres with
their C2 drone in slow mode but no overflight at all.
The new UK drone rules also talk about no flight whatsoever by any drone over crowds
of people. What does that mean in practice and policy. Is that 100 people? A thousand?
For guidance on this I would turn to the CAA CAP 722, specifically 2.1.3.4. It reads:
Assemblies of people have been defined by an objective criterion related to the possibility
for an individual to move around in order to limit the consequences of an unmanned aircraft
that has become out-of-control.
There are no strict numbers defined above which a group of people would turn into an
assembly of people as different situations would result in different conclusions. An
assembly must be evaluated qualitatively, based on the ability of people within that
group to escape from any risk posed by the UAS operation.
So, when you are out flying your sub 250g drone around and over people, you need to
assess whether or not those individuals could clear out of the way should the drone get
into trouble. This is the policy the CAA will use when assessing any issue which arises
from any incident.
The CAA also list these qualitive examples of assemblies of people to provide further
guidance to drone flyers. These are again for guidance and you will notice it states,
beaches and parks on a sunny day. This isn t telling you not to fly over people at your
local park but warning that you are more likely to find groups of people who cannot easily
move out of the way in these types of situation.
Apart from the main CAP722 document, you can also find a simple chart explaining most of
this within CAP 2012, there is a link in description to this.
So hopefully that provides some clarity in terms of flying over people and when you are
allowed to do it and with which drone. Flying a drone and recording video this close to
people does always open up certain issues in terms of privacy and this again is a question
we get asked about a lot at Geeksvana. We are working on a couple of videos to clarify
privacy issues for UK drone flyers and as with this video once you break it down it
does actually become pretty straightforward and simple to follow. For more on that remember
to hit the subscribe button and if you are one of the awesome people still watching this
video, please hit the like button I would really appreciate it!