You’ll be hard-pressed to find footage of a festival or proper jol these days that doesn’t incorporate drone footage into the video. They are, after all, completely revolutionising the way people film events and raising the bar when it comes to aerial video.

Yesterday saw the announcement of the new drone regulations by the SA Civil Aviation Authority (Sacaa), which are to be implemented from July of this year. There are a number of new rules coming into play, with these below selected from News24:

A person would need a licence to fly a drone, at minimum be 18-years-old, and hold at least a valid class four medical certificate for beyond visual line of sight operations, or operations involving drones classified as class 3 or higher.

There are also restrictions in place regarding where drones can fly and what aerial antics they can get up to:

…a drone cannot tow another aircraft, perform aerial or aerobatic displays, or be flown in a formation or swarm.

Further, drones cannot be flown next to or above a nuclear power plant, prison, police station, crime scene, court of law, national key point or strategic installation.

A swarm of drones, I guess that clears up any confusion over which collective noun to use. What about the legal proximity to people?

No drone could be operated 121.92m above the surface, or within a radius of 10km from an aerodrome, be flown overhead any person or group, or within a lateral distance of 50m from any person, or within a lateral distance of 50m from any structure or building.

The bottom line? Drones caught airspace regulators off guard when they exploded in popularity, and it seems these laws provide a good framework for responsible use.

That will come as good news to drone operators across the country, as will the news that they can now buy a DJI Phantom 3 for under R17 000 HERE.

Start your engines.

[source:news24]