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Overview and Introduction
Recreational drone pilots in Australia face restrictions on when, where and how we can fly FPV.
CASA's regulations are intended to ensure the safety of other airspace users, and other people or property. There are significant penalties for non-compliance.
Most experienced FPV pilots think that these restrictions are unreasonable. The LOS restrictions are much less onerous.
This site hopes to bring race/freestyle FPV drone pilots together, to work positively with CASA for change.
The simple act of flying FPV, other than at an CASA FPV-approved location (such as a club field), or indoors, is currently not permitted. Basically, it is illegal to do so.
This absolute restriction on FPV, as opposed to LOS, applies regardless of the size of the drone, or how low you fly, or whether or not what you did was safe.
The fine is 5 penalty units ($1,110); if contested in court, the maximum penalty that can be imposed by the Judge is up to 50 units, or $11,100.
FPV flying a 70g whoop outdoors, at knee height, FPV, on your own property, risks the full $1,110 fine; in contrast, it is perfectly legal to fly a 2kg drone LOS, and up to 400 feet in the air. We all know which is more potentially hazardous.
CASA can approve exemptions permitting recreational FPV. Currently these exemptions only apply at MAAA or AMAS Club field locations.
Individuals or groups can apply for exemptions to fly at your home or property, or a farm, or at a specific local park. The advantage of doing so is that you can post a video with showing that you breached the legislation.
A group of people could apply for a general exemption for a specific class of model aircraft, eg whoops, or under certain conditions. This is where we need to be headed.
For more information, see the [Applying for Exemptions] pages https://github.com/ctzsnooze/FPV_Australia/wiki/Applying-for-Exemptions
CASA's primary responsibility is safety. "CASA must regard as paramount the preservation of the highest level of aviation safety that is practicable in the circumstances."
Regrettably, with FPV being illegal, it is very determine how safe FPV is.
Even though many of us fly hundreds of hours a year FPV very safely, admitting to that is self-incriminating. Without a 'moratorium' of some kind, so that a non-incriminating data collection process could take place, the true safety profile of of FPV flying cannot be ascertained by anyone. CASA will only get complaints and hear of occasional incidents, but not have a clue about the denominator, or how many hours are flown safely, to put those events into perspective. And we won't know if the incidents come from 'sensible' pilots or first day beginners with no clue.
From CASA's perspective, they must do the safest possible thing.
The current anti-FPV provisions apply to all kinds of model aircraft and UAVs, including:
- Mavics and Phantoms (which can have the camera pointed straight down and hover a long time like that),
- long-range drones flying massively beyond line of sight,
- long-range fixed wing model aircraft with narrow forward angle cameras,
- heavy model aircraft (drones or helicopters) to 25kg,
- drones that could perform autonomous flyaways or indefinite flight if the Rx or Video link is lost.
Given the massive variety of risk scenarios, some of which are obviously concerning, it's not surprising that CASA has adopted a restrictive approach, and waited for us - the people who know - to come up with applications for exemptions in 'safe' circumstances.
CASA have published the means by which exemption requests can be generated.
The MAAA and AMAS have been successful in gaining exemptions generally and at specific fields, though with somewhat impractical requirements other than for racing.
It is therefore up to us to define a set of conditions or procedures that make FPV safe, and build them into an application for an exemption.