Flying drones: the law per country

➤ Pilot certification

Neil Gabriel, training and operations manager at drone systems provider PrecisionHawk, says the UK has relatively flexible regulations compared with some countries.

“The Civil Aviation Authority, which administers the rules in the UK, is forward-looking and open to reviewing legislation where a change can be proved to be safe and necessary,” he says. By comparison, other EU countries have imposed measures that restrict flying.

Hover over a country in the map to learn more about its drone rules, or read the boxes below. 

“In Spain, rules are extremely tight and commercial drone operators must hold a pilot’s licence. It’s a costly and time-consuming qualification to obtain and operators need to go well beyond what is needed to fly drones in most cases.

“Operators in the Netherlands face regulations that require each drone to be physically examined before use by government-approved assessors. “If an operator later modifies the software or equipment, the whole machine has to be sent away for checking all over again.”

UK commercial operators are less restricted, but must meet a list of criteria before flying commercially.

Commercial users in Britain also have to set out what is called an operations manual before the CAA will grant permission for commercial flying, Mr Gabriel explains.

This is a document produced by operators to demonstrate they have completed testing certificates and received training to gain an understanding of regulations, how the drone will be operated and for what purpose.

“The manual can run to many pages. For example, mine is 40 pages long and includes statements on risk assessment, flight checklists, emergency procedures and compliance with the Drone Safe code,” he adds.

Australia and the US are very similar to the UK and operators must also demonstrate competency.

➤Crop spraying

Since September 2016, farmers in Queensland, Australia, were granted permission to apply pesticides from drones, joining farmers in the US, Switzerland, New Zealand and China.

Pilots must be authorised by Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (Casa) and hold spray operator qualifications.

This is one area where UK farmers lag behind. In the UK, spraying is yet to be permitted, although research work is under way to revise regulations.

Chris Eglington, director at agricultural drone specialist Crop Angel, explains countries that have already adopted spraying are more likely to have existing laws allowing aircraft to apply pesticides.

“It was a relatively simple adaptation of their laws to introduce spraying from drones,” says Mr Eglington.

In the UK it has not been as straightforward, because helicopter spraying is only permitted through derogation for tasks such as bracken spraying in remote areas on difficult terrain.

Drone spraying was also set back after the CAA made a key revision to laws.

“About 15 months ago a rule was brought in which said nothing could be dropped from a drone without special permission from the CAA,” Mr Eglington says.

The reasons given were potential danger to other aircraft and the possibility that loads could present a hazard if they fell. “It’s a pity because there are a number of benefits from drone spraying,” he adds.

Mr Eglington, who farms in Norfolk, uses drones for crop assessment and believes it provides a foundation for targeted spraying using the equipment in the future.

“I can spot isolated problems with our rape crops from aerial mapping. So there is a potential to target these areas more precisely, using smaller quantities of pesticide. It would save time, fuel and pesticide costs while reducing the risk of ground compaction,” Mr Eglington says.

His team and other businesses, such as Harper Adams University and Northumberland-based Drone Ag, have been in dialogue with the CAA for about a year.

Drone. Photo credit: Shutterstock

They are making progress, but Drone Ag’s Jack Wrangham points out that the CAA is just one of the legislative bodies covering drone spraying. “We must also gain approval from the Chemical Regulations Directorate [CRD],” says Mr Wrangham.

The CRD regulates pesticide use and requires testing of things like the chemical formulation itself and drift potential. Testing is scheduled to begin in 2018 and Drone Ag will work with Crop Angel, Harper Adams University and a chemical manufacturer.

The drones used will be 2m in diameter, weigh about 20kg and carry a 10-litre payload, 2-3m (6-10ft) above the vegetation.

“The system has active radar systems and uses real-time kinematic [RTK]  global positioning to fly preset routes at location accuracies down to 1cm,” Mr Wrangham explains.

“Initially we are looking at covering about 1ha/hour [2.47 acres/hour], but if we can prove higher concentrations of active ingredients are safe, this area could be extended.”

Drone flying over oil seed rape. Photo credit: Gary Naylor

Mr Wrangham is hopeful this will be completed successfully by the autumn of 2018. “We could then see the first limited commercial spraying in 2019, with a wider use developing from 2020.”

Beyond that Mr Wrangham suggests that developing technologies would eventually tie together flight programming with weed and disease surveillance software.