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1/2: ensure drone operators are familiar with the other rules. imo licensing should be required to purchase a drone with much stronger punishments against unlicensed operators, otherwise idiot operators will result in further regulations on use.

3. obviously necessary

4. Drones are a public nuisance. The sound, having a dot just floating in view, zipping around - it's annoying and even scary to bystanders.

I own and fly several drones, but I was relieved when America started banning drones from wilderness areas, national parks, and many state/city parks. The serenity of those parks is far more valuable than private drone photography / selfies.

>> imo licensing should be required to purchase a drone with much stronger punishments against unlicensed operators,

Until the drone police give you a ticket and take your license away. In combination with the near-blanket bans on drone use (see above) licensing would effectively mean you can only fly a drone until someone complains.

I work in aviation. I'm the the air force and used to be a pilot. The bans on drones are ridiculously over-inclusive. Miles from any helipad? There are helipads everywhere. The better scheme is to regulate them by mass and construction. They don't need extensive steel or ceramic structures. Biuld them out of aluminum and plastic. So long hitting them is less dangerous than hitting a duck, they should be given freedom at low altitudes. Allowing drones to do what they do best may reduce the need for other manned aircraft (short-haul cargo, floatplanes and such) and make the sky a less cluttered place at altitude.

They are generally regulated by weight at least.

I fly drones as a photographer/videographer and, for the most part, don't find the regulations too heavy handed. Worrying about distance from every single tiny airfield is the main one since, as you noted, they are everywhere (unmanned fields, helipads, etc). Applied as a hard-and-fast rule, this can be a bit much when you just want a tree-height photo of a building or similar.

I was in the US recently and took my drone (https://www.instagram.com/__serio__/ ). We were often in national parks, and there are also airfields everywhere so I barely found opportunities to fly. The official FAA app is a bit hopeless and it's often unclear about whether you're good to go or not. I think that a much better app from the authorities would be a major help. The casual drone operators I know in Australia make use of the official app here to stay abreast of options.

>The casual drone operators I know in Australia make use of the official app here to stay abreast of options

I'm in Australia and all the "casual drone operators" I've seen DGAF and just fly the buzzing menaces wherever they want, including in National Parks.

Are you allowed to fly drones over people in Australia? Because they do that too.

"Buzzing menaces". Are those the buzzing menaces causing roadkill on the roads into the parks?

Getting permission to fly in NT national parks is quite straightforward. My flights in other parks have been organised by tourism authorities. I don't doubt there are people (I suspect the majority are international tourists) pushing the rules. One thing I think doesn't help is that the official flight check app for drone operators often doesn't factor in national parks, or maybe it's if you don't have phone coverage in an area - common for parks.

You can fly within 30m of people with their permission. Not over people though I imagine that's subjective - directly over people? Roughly over people?

>"Buzzing menaces". Are those the buzzing menaces causing roadkill on the roads into the parks?

If you're trying to compare cars to drones then IMO, that is a false comparison. You usually need to use a car to get into the park. Cars have a purpose. People generally turn their cars off when they arrive and get out to walk around. Drones flying around dominates the area with their annoying sound for no reason.

Even though I hate consumer drones (especially in National Parks), I don't have much problem with people who actually go through the proper channels. I strongly doubt the annoying people are getting permission to fly.

On multiple occasions, I've had people flying their drones directly over my head while I was at a lookout. There is little more irritating than going out of your way to enjoy a bit of nature and peace and quiet only to have it ruined by an idiot with a drone, especially when it almost certainly is against the rules anyway. Can we not have a single quiet place?

My point is to consider your language. People had strong reactions to books, magazines, radio and TV as they were introduced. Each were considered the end of times by at least someone.

Let's look at some of your bits here: "dominates the area with their annoying sound for no reason", "hate consumer drones", "little more irritating than going out of your way to enjoy a bit of nature and peace and quiet only to have it ruined by an idiot with a drone".

Drones have a purpose, maybe it's just not something you appreciate. Cars dominate areas with their annoying sounds, and I'd suggest that you're more used to their sound so you tune it out. I've been to national parks in dozens of countries around the world and, like you, I appreciate peace and quiet, but I've heard planes and helicopters go over in almost all of them. They're background noise because they are not new, so no one gets outraged. Go to a national park almost anywhere central in the USA and the sky is streaked with contrails that impact every scene and photo for the entire day.

At Kings Canyon last year, someone flew a drone over the area and everyone looked up. Minutes before and after (in fact, most of the day), much much louder scenic helicopters flew a circuit and almost no one reacted at all. (You can get easy permission to fly a drone at Kings Canyon, you're just not meant to fly over the canyon proper and rim.)

Like I said, I suspect most flying drones in parks are not locals so they figure they'll be gone before someone sees their photos online and pulls them up for it.

>People had strong reactions to books, magazines, radio and TV as they were introduced.

All of those things are enjoyed in your own home without having an effect on others.

I did consider all the language that I used and that was the most diplomatic that I could muster for such pointless and stupid annoyance in the only land area we have that is relatively free of buzzing things.

I'm not a fan of Planes/helis/car noise either, but they are usually going somewhere, so they don't hang in a single area ruining the environment for 20 minutes at a time.

I dread batteries getting even better/cheaper so drones can ruin the environment for even longer.

I wouldn't care about drones if they would only fly in an area for the time needed to transit through that area, but they hover and annoy until the controller finally gets bored of irritating everyone around them.

What is the greater purpose of consumer drones that you refer to that I am overlooking? I mean other than, "wow, I'm controlling a flying thing"?

You obviously know far more about aviation than I do, but it's not hard to find helipads in urban areas where a crash would be disastrous, eg near hospitals (which are often near major infrastructure like freeways for the same reasons they have helipads).

A drone maliciously aimed at a helicopter's tail rotor could conceivably cause an accident depending on the construction/trickery selected by the operator, and a helicopter crash at a hospital has the potential to be a major disaster.

Ya, but someone who wants to down a helicopter with a drone isn't going to care about no-fly zones. The rules aren't meant to protect against the really evil people. They are to stop accidental collisions.

Getting a drone into a tail rotor would be very tricky. If the helo is in forward flight you would need a comparably fast drone to approach from the side, without being blown off course by the main rotor downwash. I doubt it possible. It might be done with the helo in a hover, but even there there would be only seconds of vulnerability. Say you get close enough, the tail rotor is itself another massive powerful fan. This wouldn't, couldn't, happen by accident.

The greater threat is pilots reacting badly to sighted drones. Fear of drones might well cause more accidents than actual collisions.

>> A trainee had been practising hovering about 15m (50ft) above trees ... Seeing a quadcopter flying towards them, the instructor had taken control. But he had clipped a tree with the tail rotor, causing the helicopter to crash to the ground and tip on to its side.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42904204

> A drone maliciously aimed at a helicopter's tail rotor could conceivably cause an accident

A gun maliciously fired at a helicopter's tail rotor could conceivably cause an accident. A laser fired maliciously into the eye of a helicopter pilot could etc etc. Do we ban any of those brought near a hospital out of fear that a malicious actor would use them in the worst possible way?

A malicious actor can always find a way to cause problems. A benign but stupid actor is the one we should be regulating for, and IMO keeping your drone 50 yards away from a helicopter landing pad should be sufficient.

> 3. obviously necessary

One could argue that drones should be allowed to get right up next to helipads, lat/lon-wise, as long as they stay a safe distance away from the helipad altitude-wise.

There are helipads on top of buildings. If the helipad is at ~1500ft, and my drone never exceeds 300ft, then it's not endangering the helicopters, even if it's right next to the building with the helipad on it.

But instead, because of the way the law is phrased, if there's a helipad on top of a building in downtown, now I'm not able to film anywhere in downtown.

(This same argument could apply to airfields, but airfields "above" neighbouring geography are pretty rare. I guess you could be filming against the cliff adjoining Lukla Airport in Nepal?)

One could argue that drones should be allowed to get right up next to helipads, lat/lon-wise, as long as they stay a safe distance away from the helipad altitude-wise.

Pilots and ATC refer to these dimensions as laterally and vertically.

> This same argument could apply to airfields, but airfields "above" neighbouring geography are pretty rare.

Take a look at Congonhas (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%A3o_Paulo%E2%80%93Congonh...), it's a very busy airport right in the middle of a major city, and its runway sits higher than the roof of many of its adjacent buildings. As a passenger, landing there feels like you are going to land on top of the buildings until the last second. If a plane overruns the runway, it'll go downwards, cross a major road, and hit a building on the other side (yes, this has happened: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TAM_Airlines_Flight_3054).

I'm not sure it's feasible for police to enforce no-fly zones in 3D space. No way is someone from the ground going to be able to tell the difference between 275 feet and 325 feet.

The US already uses 3D airspace: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airspace_class_(United_State...

The issue is the distance reserved is conservative so people slightly encroaching don’t instantly cause problems.

You're assuming normal operations. You have to take normal and emergency operations into account.

A drone near a helipad is an undeclared obstacle, and permitting any drone near a helipad increases the probability of a conflict.

What are you filming in a crowded downtown with 150 story helipad-topped highrises that isn't the inside of private buildings?

Things happening in the street, such as festivals/parades/protests.

It will be hard not to fly over people, doing that...

I don't think all helipads have so much restrictions around them. We are a few blocks away from one, and we fly drones all the time. Legally. It must be a matter of how the specific piece of airspace got regulated, who did it, etc. I also see plenty of FAA maps that were drawn very thoughtful and detailed, versus others where there's just a big circle around an object.

I don't think FAA regulations apply in Canada.

"Drones are a public nuisance. The sound, having a dot just floating in view, zipping around - it's annoying and even scary to bystanders."

Whenever someone raises this gripe about drones, I wonder how they feel about cars. I'm currently in my office, with the windows closed and a heater audibly running. I can hear trucks/buses and occasionally cars on a 30-50km/h minor arterial road two blocks away. I can hear every car that drives down the road a block away.

(I own two cars and two drones.)

> Whenever someone raises this gripe about drones, I wonder how they feel about cars. I'm currently in my office, with the windows closed and a heater audibly running. I can hear trucks/buses and occasionally cars on a 30-50km/h minor arterial road two blocks away. I can hear every car that drives down the road a block away.

I guess that his answer would be that this nuisance is good for the economy where flying a drone for entertainment doesn't. His argument was also about them being at at least 30m from bystander, which the nuisance is a good argument for.

I fly my drones to take photos for tourism purposes. Others fly to photograph houses/buildings for real estate agents. We pay tax and contribute to an economy. Obviously it's on a different scale than trucking, for example. I don't know anyone who consistently flies one purely for "entertainment" - it'd get boring fast.

OP talked about them being a distracting dot in the periphery. Like birds? People overreacted to books, radio, magazines, TV, etc - it comes with all new things.

I often think of the "but what about the animals" people in national parks. Those are national parks at the end of roads bordered by roadkill and with parking lots and shoulders absolutely flooded with cars, often idling. I am not arguing for drones all over national parks 24/7, but I marvel at reactions like OP's which could easily describe cars or dogs:

"Drones are a public nuisance. The sound, having a dot just floating in view, zipping around - it's annoying and even scary to bystanders."

As the article suggests, drone rules in the USA and Australia aren't outrageous, but the B4YFLY app is very poor.

> 3. obviously necessary

No. In my hometown the park where people have been safely flying model airplanes decades before the drone craze is 2.5 miles from the town's airport. 5 miles is incredibly restrictive and not justifiable.

4) That's a terrible way to make laws.

By that description we should ban dogs. Surely the number of people terrified by dogs far exceeds the number of people scared of drones, by a huge number.

Considering how the only reason we don't ban cigarettes is that they are too entrenched in society and the economy there is a precedent.

Just a satisfied customer, no affiliation. I did the combined basic/advanced course from pilottraining.ca and learned a ton.

A related thing that didn’t occur to me until recently: if you keep your all-up weight under 250g, all of those regulations go out the window and drop back down to “fly responsibly”. I’ve been working on drones professionally for a year now, and am just in the process of putting together a tiny kit for fun. This idea clicked for me when a Transport Canada-certified flight examiner sent me a really cool FPV video that was clearly flying around people. You can do a lot while staying under the weight restriction.

> if you keep your all-up weight under 250g

Are there commercially available drones that light? My Mavic Air is tiny, and it's still over 400g. The only way I can imagine making it under 200g and still able to fly is to reduce the battery to something that can only fly for a few minutes.

I don't know about commercially available, to be honest. I'm currently in my (sparse) spare time putting together the parts list for a relatively boring Whoop that will be FPV capable with extended flight time (say ~10-20 min).

In the professional work I've been doing, I've been using ArduPilot (which, despite the name, isn't Arduino-based). I'm debating whether to use ArduPilot or BetaFlight for the flight controller, but if it's possible weight-wise, I am going to try to squeeze GPS onto it to get more autonomous/stable flight out of it. We'll see how it all goes. Maybe there'll be a "Show HN" post in a few weeks :)

basically just toys below that weight, usually without even basic hover capability.

For off-the-shelf gear, you could definitely be right. I don't know that market very well.

For home-built though, you can definitely put together a rig that'll do GPS-based hover and other semi-autonomous flight modes. For example:

https://oscarliang.com/gps-mini-quad/

There is an entire class of first person flying micro drones called “CineWhoops” which combine first person real-time video and HD recording on the drone and have an AUW far under 250g. They are certainly a different flying and photography style from a DJI style photo rig, and I’d argue a much more fun one.

Coming up right away, both FatShark and DJI have announced digital FPV video gear that, if I recall, transmits 1080p. So long as they keep the weight down on the camera/transmitter, that should open up a lot of new capabilities too.

This kind of functionality should be in software, does is also directly affect weight (a bigger chip or similar)?

for what benefit?

Drones can be a rather severe nuisance and potential safety hazard when mishandled. As an example I was at the beach in San Francisco once, and someone flying an obnoxiously loud FPV drone was repeatedly buzzing everyone's heads, often just feet overhead. It completely ruined the beach for anyone nearby.

Even without such dickish behavior, the sound of a million angry wasps and the possibility of unwanted aerial photography is generally not a welcome addition to most of the places people want to go.

> Even the less-populated parks and recreation areas- how do I even tell if there's someone 29m away from me through a forest or behind something?

You pay to rent the space and put up a barrier. These laws were designed to allow drones used for filming (and ensure the production company has to cover the costs of ensuring safety for said filming.) They give no consideration to hobbyists, or anyone else who isn't making enough of a profit off of the thing they're doing in the air to be worth paying people to clear out of the area.

Basically, it's like food licensing. They only care to ensure that people trying to make a profit off of their food-service business aren't doing so at the expense of public safety; they don't care how many "food hobbyists" (e.g. parents who bake brownies for school bake sales) they prevent from engaging in their hobby in the process.

Except that the film industry in canada wants to do far more than film over closed sets. They want wide nature shots (this is Canada) and moving vehicle shots on public roads. The real estate industry (far bigger than film/TV) also wants to photograph houses from above. Farmers, also a huge industry, want them to spray crops. Police want to use drones to hunt criminals. Fire departments want them to scan buildings. Rescue groups want to send them over fields to find children. All of this requires flying in areas that are disallowed today. The current regs appease the aviation industry. That will change as other larger and more influential sectors make raise their voices.

In my personal experience, the drone rules are impacting aviation more than expected. The problem is that people are actually following the rules. NOTAMs are being issued to notify manned aircraft of drone activity. Large manned aircraft at thousands of feet are being redirected because someone with a 2kg drone is running a test.

Example of how complicated this can become for pilots: https://www.tc.gc.ca/en/services/aviation/drone-safety/notic...

Silly comment: a few of these could be done with a motorized helium balloon connected to a pulley with a rope.

Apart from being way less cool is it also under the effect of this kind of law?

That has been a thing for a very long time. Balloons are commonly used for lighting outdoors (reasons to do with shadows) but inevitably result in UFO reports if allowed too high. They don't work so well for cameras. Film/tv cameras are heavy. The balloons would need to be huge and ungainly.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WI5DkC2IK0

http://www.airstar-light.com/en/cinema/

Wait, are you a) also Canadian, and b) saying that you literally cannot bake cookies and then legally give them to friends?

I could understand if a nursing/retirement home had its own rules for not sharing food, but this is actually illegal?

Edit: OP edited comment with a different scenario.

>Who has been seriously injured in Canada by drone accidents?

With all due respect, that is not a particularly valid point, I mean, the people that just got your 5 dollars (and soon will get another 10) will readily tell you how that never happened because unauthorized drone flying was forbidden before that happened and probably expect an applause or a pat on the shoulder for being so much efficient in preventive measures.

> Not be within 5 miles of most airports, or 1-3 miles from most helipads. (Didn't we convert to metric before I was born?)

Aviation uses imperial units (feet for altitude, knots for speed, and nautical miles for distance).

And according to this graph, the situation in Canada is even more complex: https://twitter.com/Peeardee/status/1169314278840528896

Sounds reasonable. About the 30m rule, they can be covered in less than 3 seconds by a non-toy drone. If I'm not the owner I wouldn't want it any more near (the privacy implications are another interesting matter).

Besides the exam, all of these have been requirements for flying RC aircraft for ages. It's part of responsibly operating a remote device.

Unfortunately, the influx of consumer drones has set the expectation that you should be able to fly anywhere you want. That simply hasn't been the case for any RC aircraft for a long time.

The rules in the U.S. aren't that different. I live equidistant between Midway and O'Hare in the Chicago area. O'Hare is one of the busiest airports in the U.S. and I don't have any problem finding places to fly. There are plenty of soccer fields and parks that are rarely used. Go early in the morning if you are particularly paranoid about bystanders.

I've found if you keep a respectful distance from people, nobody gives shit that you are flying a drone. If anything they're more likely to come up and ask questions, curious about what you are doing.

I think that's an important difference between a city like Chicago and a city like SF. For better or worse, people in Chicago seem more laid back.

do these rules apply for RC planes in Canada as well? I'm wondering if all hobbyists have to pass similar exams in order to fly RC planes or helicopters

Typically, things are defined by weight and not lift mechanism. In the USA, you can avoid licensing requirements by joining the AMA or a local flying club.