Gasax, I'll be honest, the only place that argue over this is on pprune. I have been in touch with the CAA about this and they have stated that this:

the UK to fly below 500 ft provided they are 500 ft away from persons, vessels, vehicles and structures – in other words no change from the UK’s former '500ft Rule' that people flying in the UK are used to applying.

.. Is how we are to operate in the UK. So if you follow SERA, you're going to be safe and cautious, although we are allowed to operate under he previous 500' rule through the flexibility in the SERA document. This is where I think most of the confusion stems from.

It's actually laid down in black and white (well, blue) further in the main SERA document. Official Record Series 4 No.1065 General Permissions summarises it - pdf - http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/33/ORS4No1065.pdf

Dagowly if you cannot understand the post directly before your latest then I cannot help you.

I think there is no doubt the CAA intended to retain the old 500ft rule.

Unfortunately what they actually wrote into the regulation did not do that. Perhaps it is not surprising that they decline to admit their incompetence .

150mtrs/500ft FROM the paddlers, Legal. Less than that, it isn't. Simples:).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5ln_IsWtsM

...and your reference for that statement, Flyingmac?

2 s

uncomfortable though it feels to side with the Cleptocracy Against Aviation (there being no kinder name for an agency which charges $60 to send an email and which can't bring itself to ask any of its executive board members to scrape by on less dosh than the British prime minister), the way I read the ORS is that it means exactly what it is intended to mean.

But more to the point, no court in the UK will ever decide otherwise, not least because no Prosecutor or Fiscal will see it as being in the public interest to argue that the CAA (peace and blessings, etc.) has its head up its institutional backside.

N-Jacko


I would have thought that quite the opposite would apply - that a court would have to abide by the law, European and UK, whatever the CAA might have intended.


2 s

2 Sheds. Rather than getting into a tedious debate, how about you interpreting rule 5 in the most restrictive way possible?


I'll continue to interpret rule 5 as I understand it. 500ft FROM, not ABOVE. Secure in the knowledge that I won't meet you coming the other way.:)

Check out UK AIP ENR 1.2-1 para 1.3

(a) General
(i) The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) permits, under paragraphs SERA.3105 and SERA.5005(f), an aircraft to fly at a
height of less than 150 m (500 ft) above the highest obstacle within a radius of 150 m (500 ft) from the aircraft,
subject to the condition set out in sub-paragraph (a)(ii).
(ii) The aircraft must not be flown closer than 150 m (500 ft) to any person, vessel, vehicle or structure except with the
permission of the CAA.

Don't forget to trim slightly nose up. That way, should you relax your grip on the stick, you will climb. Watch out for gulls or grouse.:)