The issue of people objecting to drones flying over in the vicinity of the public is going to become more discussed over the next few years. In wilderness areas many people go hiking or exploring and part of the attraction to do that is the serenity and isolation of nature etc. Being a few miles from anywhere, enjoying the outdoors and all that nature brings can be interrupted by the buzz of a drone nearby. I can fully understand it.
A couple of weeks ago I shot some aerial footage for a friend who owns a large bit of remote forestry on an island. The property is about 30 acres in size and has a mile long beach on one end of it. Its a 30 minute drive on unsealed roads to get to and then a 5 minute walk through bush to get to the beach. The footage he wanted required me flying out over the sea and showing the property from the air with the water, beach, hills and forest in the footage. I had been waiting for a few weeks to do this as he wanted the footage to show high tide. Down here in NZ we are having an El Nino summer which for us means lots of wind so I had been checking tides, sun and wind for a while. Finally got a break 2 days after xmas when all 3 would be good. It meant that i would need to be filming from about 9am but would only need 2 batteries worth of flying over the water for that particular shot.
I arrived on the beach and saw one smallish boat 100 meters out. Set up and started flying and filming. The boat was in the middle of the bay which meant I was flying around it. Total time in the air was less than 10 minutes. As I was bringing my multi in to land at the end of the flight I could hear people on the boat shouting at me to F off. So I decided to pack up and head back to my car and get on with the other shots needed. My car was a 5 minute walk through the bush to get to. While packing up my car 2 guys came out of the bush, they had been on the boat and had taken their dinghy to the beach and followed me through. They proceeded to yell abuse at me and one of them was pushing me around. Being on my own I couldnt really fight back so had to try and explain what i was doing and keep things calm. After a few minutes they left and headed back to their boat.
Their reaction was a bit over the top but I think there will be more and more confrontations coming for drone operators in the wild. Down here in NZ our Dept of Conservation has just banned drones from flying in a couple of our national parks due to the general public complaining about their intrusiveness.
I had full permission to fly over private property, I had been in touch with the 2 nearest neighbours to let them know what I was doing so they would know why there was a drone in the area but even with that the public perception and desire to be able to enjoy nature as it is meant a couple of people over reacted to me. I hadnt done anything wrong, the flight was logged and i had full permissions and at no time was I doing anything that was of a danger to people however I got a bad reaction from members of the public.
This is something we are going to have to carefully consider and be aware of when flying. Rightly or wrongly some members of the public will object and I think as more and more use drones this will be an increasingly difficult thing to deal with.
A couple of weeks ago I shot some aerial footage for a friend who owns a large bit of remote forestry on an island. The property is about 30 acres in size and has a mile long beach on one end of it. Its a 30 minute drive on unsealed roads to get to and then a 5 minute walk through bush to get to the beach. The footage he wanted required me flying out over the sea and showing the property from the air with the water, beach, hills and forest in the footage. I had been waiting for a few weeks to do this as he wanted the footage to show high tide. Down here in NZ we are having an El Nino summer which for us means lots of wind so I had been checking tides, sun and wind for a while. Finally got a break 2 days after xmas when all 3 would be good. It meant that i would need to be filming from about 9am but would only need 2 batteries worth of flying over the water for that particular shot.
I arrived on the beach and saw one smallish boat 100 meters out. Set up and started flying and filming. The boat was in the middle of the bay which meant I was flying around it. Total time in the air was less than 10 minutes. As I was bringing my multi in to land at the end of the flight I could hear people on the boat shouting at me to F off. So I decided to pack up and head back to my car and get on with the other shots needed. My car was a 5 minute walk through the bush to get to. While packing up my car 2 guys came out of the bush, they had been on the boat and had taken their dinghy to the beach and followed me through. They proceeded to yell abuse at me and one of them was pushing me around. Being on my own I couldnt really fight back so had to try and explain what i was doing and keep things calm. After a few minutes they left and headed back to their boat.
Their reaction was a bit over the top but I think there will be more and more confrontations coming for drone operators in the wild. Down here in NZ our Dept of Conservation has just banned drones from flying in a couple of our national parks due to the general public complaining about their intrusiveness.
I had full permission to fly over private property, I had been in touch with the 2 nearest neighbours to let them know what I was doing so they would know why there was a drone in the area but even with that the public perception and desire to be able to enjoy nature as it is meant a couple of people over reacted to me. I hadnt done anything wrong, the flight was logged and i had full permissions and at no time was I doing anything that was of a danger to people however I got a bad reaction from members of the public.
This is something we are going to have to carefully consider and be aware of when flying. Rightly or wrongly some members of the public will object and I think as more and more use drones this will be an increasingly difficult thing to deal with.
