FLY SAFELY & LEGALLY
With drones comes responsibility – make sure you stay on the right side of the law
Before ever flying a drone, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re complicated. There is a lot to learn, but they’re so intelligent they’re incredibly easy to fly. The difficulty, however, can come when things go wrong, and occasionally, regardless of experience, this does happen. It’s how you handle the situation that makes the difference.
Simple precautions, such as using and checking the apps we mention on this page, can go a long way to avoiding problems. Preflight checks – like calibrating the compass, checking the propellers and replacing them if cracked or damaged, or ensuring drone batteries, the controller and your phone are fully charged – is a must.
Even with all these checks in place, things can still go wrong; you may misjudge an obstacle and crash, or the drone could even fly away. With the former, this is most often due to user error, so take great care when flying near trees and always maintain a visual line of sight of the drone.
With the latter, the most important thing to do is to try pressing the return to home button. If this fails turn the controller off and on to see if it reconnects or the return to home works, and if this fails call the police on 101 to let them know your location and the direction the drone is travelling. This won’t get you into trouble, it’s simply about keeping people safe.
Basically, as long as you remain safe and legal at all times, there’s absolutely no reason why you can’t enjoy the creative visual benefits they have to offer, despite the bad press their use sometimes receives.