Hello enthusiastic drone operators, would you suggest some amazing places for drone flying? Best around Melbourne suburbs but anywhere is welcome as I will mark them on maps for future travels.
I found it’s quite hard to find a place to fly, if you want to totally obey the regulations. I’ve got a DJI Mavic Mini for a year. I love drones but now I’m struggling whether or not upgrading to higher models such as Air 2. Just because I found the drone regulations in Australia are too strict, and only very few good places are allowed to fly.
Let’s have a look at these rules.
30 metres away from people and buildings - Always a problem, as people are everywhere in good spots you want to fly at. Even there is nobody around you in this second, how about next minute someone just walk into your 30m range? It’s almost impossible to avoid people, unless you fly above the sea or relocate a place 100km away full of trees and kangaroos (but according to another rule you can’t fly above wildlife either lol). In fact there is no where you can fly in all CBDs. I see many drone operators are constantly ignoring this rule just as jaywalking.
120 metres max altitude - No problem for me but might miss some amazing shoots from high sky, as my drone can fly up to 400 metres.
No night fly - No problem for me. My drone doesn’t have big sensor and aperture so not good for night pictures. Might be an issue for some YouTubers that use good cameras on their drones. But they might have drone license so that’s another category.
Maintain visual line of sight - A big problem. Making the new released DJI mini 2 occusync 2.0 useless as you can’t let it go beyond 500m if you still want to see your tiny drone. Actually I think this rule is very old, it’s for the last century’s remote model plane that does not have any camera on it. But anyway rule is rule.
Only one drone at a time - No problem for me. I only saw some YouTubers operating two drones at a time just for comparison.
No fly over above people - A big problem as mentioned above. Pretty sure no one will hover your drone above someone cuz it’s just impolite and risky. But it’s very possible your drone will fly over someone during its trip, and sometimes you don’t even actually realise that.
No flying in populous area - A big problem as mentioned above. This is also why I’m asking for some good suggestions about where to fly them.
5.5 km away from a controlled airport - No problem for me and a great rule for everyone’s safety.
No fly over emergency operations area - No problem for me. Common sense as you don’t want to help police chasing a running car that carries four terrorists and later receive a million $ bill.
No fly in national parks - Always a problem which makes your sky trip harder even you just escaped from CBD and crowded suburbs. Unfortunately most Australian national parks are gorgeous and ideal for drone videos, but you can’t.
Finally I don't want to discourage any beginners that want to step into drone field, but you might need to think carefully if you really like drones. If you want to follow these strict drone regulations it might be quite difficult to find a good place to fly them. Constantly I found suitable places do not have good scene around. Vice versa. So if anyone could suggest some great places for a comfy drone trip that would be very much appreciated.
I know everyone does jaywalking. It just like people are now riding e-scooters everywhere on the streets. But illegal is illegal, you don’t want to worry about that someone is reporting you when they see your drone around them.
I'm in Sydney and have a few carefully selected CBD spots that are near water/hills and outside 5.5km.
As for my experience I generally agree but I find flying away from people to be the easiest set of rules you said you struggle with. I don't take off near people and try to get fairly high to just keep away from people.
I think the national parks and the line of sight are the two hardest rules. I agree the former locks off so much beauty and the latter seems like it's not significantly more dangerous than line of sight flying (indeed I find flying by eye hard as distance is hard to judge)
I went to Queanbeyen (as Canberra won't allow us in) and I tried to call a ranger and visit the station to ask if I could fly in one of their parks but noone was around (28th Dec) and so while no signage forbode it I figured it was safer not to. Such a shame