It Shouldn't Be This Hard to Responsibly Fly a Drone
I decided today to look into what I need to do to legally fly my drone in Canada. I&#x27;ve owned it over a year, but since new regulations came in I&#x27;ve been afraid to use it in case it was done incorrectly. What I&#x27;ve learned so far is that in order to legally fly my drone, I must:<p>1. Register the drone online for $5 (done, took 2 minutes).<p>2. Take an exam. They won&#x27;t tell me what&#x27;s going to be on the exam, but instead recommend I go to one of a long list of &quot;drone schools&quot; who have &#x27;self declared&#x27; that they can teach what will be on the exam. The exam is $10, but who knows what these schools will charge or if they&#x27;re even reputable.<p>3. Not be within 5 miles of most airports, or 1-3 miles from most helipads. (Didn&#x27;t we convert to metric before I was born?). At least they&#x27;ve made a helpful tool with that <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrc.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;drone-tool&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nrc.canada.ca&#x2F;en&#x2F;drone-tool&#x2F;</a>. The tool also helpfully shows that oh right, most lakes are used for sea-planes to take off and land so avoid those too.<p>4. Never fly within 100 ft (30m) horizontally of any &#x27;bystander&#x27;, ie: they aren&#x27;t with me flying the drone.<p>What this all boils down to is that there&#x27;s no reason to own a drone anymore unless you own a very large property far from any populated areas. There is no place less than a 20-30 minute drive away from my home that I can even legally fly it. Even then, any park or place I might legally go to without trespassing will have too many people to be more than 30m from anyone else. Even the less-populated parks and recreation areas- how do I even tell if there&#x27;s someone 29m away from me through a forest or behind something?<p>All the while: for what benefit? Who has been seriously injured in Canada by drone accidents?