Originally Posted by
Zaxis
Actually a commercial drone pilot does think very much like a pilot. They have to or they lose the right to fly. Drone operations are under far greater public scrutiny than other aerial work so they do follow the rules. They are fully aware of airspace classes and will post NOTAMs if the location requires it. In military low flying areas they will contact the low flying cell so aircrew are aware of their operations. Many are ex military or have PPLs . The real problem are the toy flyer brigade who really need a bit more education or the hope the fad will pass and things settle down.
Flying over public occasions like Headingly demand special clearances from the CAA and local government and these are only given to experienced operators who have presented a full safety case.
I fly aerial work aircraft (mostly orthophoto and LIDAR), but also operate a camera equipped 3DR-X8 drone when appropriate for smaller survey tasks. I am always concerned when flying the drone at the lack of inbuilt redundancy in case of battery failure. I "crashed" our first 3DR-X8 when the LiOn batteries exploded in flight - luckily without hurting anybody on the ground. Do these drones used by Sky etc have any redundancy - i.e. assuming that they are 2 x 4 rotor drones, do the upper and lower rotors have separate power systems, and would they be able to recover on one set of rotors?