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Commercial Flights from UK Beach

Hiwayman

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Quite new to this so bear with me....
Has anyone undertaken a commercial flight taking off from a UK beach? If so, how did you deal with getting a signed permission to fly?
 
Quite new to this so bear with me....
Has anyone undertaken a commercial flight taking off from a UK beach? If so, how did you deal with getting a signed permission to fly?

You will need land owners permission to fly which most likely will be the local council and they will want you to submit your risk assessments etc before hand i suspect. Ive done it a few times now. If you cant get permission its plain tough luck sorry as you need it so be nice when you approach them haha.

Every council usually has someone who deals with filming requests etc so moving forward this person may be a useful contact for you.

The most important thing to deal with when flying off a beach though is SAND. It will destroy motors if i gets in. The fist time we flew off a beach we killed a motor due to it (It degraded quickly within 2 months after). I tried blasting it with air etc and it just would not clear. I recommend you use at least a 2mx2m tarpaulin in addition to your take off mat to limit sand contact.

Good luck and hope you have a nice council :)
 
You can fly from the Crown Estates land from the foreshore and estuaries - that's the case even if the council/landowner above the Mean High water mark won't give permission. You may still need Crown Estates permission for commercial flights, but they have given a general permission to fly, so long as your flight complies with local by-laws and CAA regs. Do a google search on crown estates and drones and you'll find the info you need, along with a map showing what is their land and what is private...

As Mick said - take precautions over sand... it gets everywhere, oh, and watch out for the tides and make sure you don't get cut off ;) :D
 
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You can fly from the Crown Estates land from the foreshore and estuaries - that's the case even if the council/landowner above the Mean High water mark won't give permission. You may still need Crown Estates permission for commercial flights, but they have given a general permission to fly, so long as your flight complies with local by-laws and CAA regs. Do a google search on crown estates and drones and you'll find the info you need, along with a map showing what is their land and what is private...

As Mick said - take precautions over sand... it gets everywhere, oh, and watch out for the tides and make sure you don't get cut off ;) :D

I never knew that, good shout pal. There is some bays near me that have amazing stuff to film that fall into it. It does say on the site though that local authorities can ban flights if they wish.
 
Be careful. The crown estates general permission only applies to hobby flights. Commercial flights require permission and possibly permission. The crown also doesn't own ALL of the foreshore. There is an online map you can search for.
 
And of course if you are planning to fly as a hobbyist using the map then hobbyist 150m clearance applies (from CAs).
 
And of course if you are planning to fly as a hobbyist using the map then hobbyist 150m clearance applies (from CAs).

Yeah they seem to own stripes of beach dont they. I found a spot at low tide locally we could fly from that would be nice though :) If hobby permission is easy hopefully commercial perm on their land is easy too.
 
The bit they own is the bit between low and high tide (at their lowest and highest points I think). It means that you have to take tide times into account and be careful where you are taking off from. It's a great way to wind up over-zealous council officers! Worth approaching them as they are clearly not as anti-drone as the National Trust and positive communications can only help. Also worth contact local police if anywhere near the public once you have all permissions in place.
 
I have approached Crown Estates asking to see a copy of the licence they would issue for commercial flights and timescale to approve such applications. I will feedback when I know more.
 
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Not managed to obtain a copy of the licence but have been advised that the fee is 500 pounds! Clearly that's been established with film crews in mind , don't see many Drone pilots rushing to get that approval.
 
Yes, a tad unrealistic. Meanwhile, hobbyists can fly around rom their beaches completely inmolested!
 

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