Right now there are no written laws in South Africa to do with the private use of drones in commercial airspace. The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) thinks otherwise:

This, from iol:

Civil aviation authorities are scrambling to regulate the use of drones or unmanned aircraft that are taking to the skies in a “tsunami”, putting commercial airlines and the safety and privacy of the public at risk.

The drones can be used for law enforcement, agriculture, wildlife management, search and rescue operations, 3D mapping, the sale of property and marketing, as well as for fun.

On Wednesday, the South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) released a statement saying that they were cracking down as using drones was illegal.

SA National Parks (SANParks) spokesman Rey Thakuli said they were aware of the aviation authority’s ban and would abide by it.

However, he said, the use of sophisticated drones would be used in the Kruger National Park once the regulations were published.

Thakuli said a tourist was caught recently using a drone to track game in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.

Poppy Khoza, the director of Civil Aviation, said: “The SACAA has not given any concession or approval to any organisation, individual, institutions or government entity to operate drones. Those who are flying any type of unmanned aircraft are doing so illegally.”

She said drones were new to civil aviation and their operation and purchase were still not controlled or regulated.

“The SACAA has allocated the necessary resources to ensure a speedy integration of drones into South African airspace,” she said.

The unmanned aircraft, which were once used exclusively in military operations particularly in the US, are now freely available on the internet and in malls.

[more here]

On the sadrones.co.za forum, one commentator had this to say:

Interesting. They do say a lot without actually saying anything new. :hmmm: I understand that these topics are under discussion with the CAA, but as far as I know it’s been under discussion for many years. They just pointed out the details of what they are discussing now.

Something I have a problem with is their definition of a UAV or RPAS. According to their definitions, all radio controlled aircraft fall in those categories. Whether it is a tiny indoor heli or a 1/3 scale monster of a plane, they are all UAVs or RPAS’s.
So will all these regulations (actually they’re advisories, not regulations) affect everyone who fly radio control planes? Not possible. So when do my radio control plane become a UAV or RPAS? I still fly it via regular radio control, but with the difference that I look at a video feed instead of looking directly at the plane. They don’t mention FPV or video feed anywhere. So are they only talking about planes that fly by autopilot, with waypoints?

That was written when the documents pertaining to drones are the vague laws surrounding them were online. Now they’ve vanished. In fact ALL the original docs on this page have vanished.

Weird.

Under a recent forum, dealing with today’s article (originally 24 March), one guy had this to say:

Will be interesting to see what regulations they come up with. What do you all think? I’m still going keep doing what I do though, for now.

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