You want us to fly where???
Many enter the "drone" industry thinking that simply the act of buying a drone and obtaining a permission from the CAA is enough to get rich quicker. These are exactly the same types of people who never realise just how complex being a drone pilot can be.
When working in television outside of scripted dramas & shows, such as news gathering and documentaries, you have to go where the story is to capture it. The story does not come to you.
We had precisely this type of aerial filming request from the BBC this week past so I thought it would be good to give an insight into what it takes to pull it off safely, legally and to the directors satisfaction.
Just before Christmas we received a booking from the BBC in London to do aerial filming in a Northern Irish city for a factual entertainment production. We were provided with a series of postcodes and asked could we fly in those approximate locations. Our team had a quick look and found these were all urban areas and heavily congested with little free open space.
A drone company working on a standard permission from the Civil Aviation Authority would have had to say it was not possible, but thanks to our enhanced permission reducing our flights from 50m from uncontrolled persons to 20 metres, we knew it was possible in principle. We let the client know we could do it.
So an exceptionally busy Christmas and New Year (more on that in an upcoming article!) came and went and early this week past the BBC producer got in touch to confirm the last minute details, such as the houses they needed filmed.
As this was only 24 hours out from the shoot and we had a lot on, we knew we would have to obtain flight permissions on the day rather than in advance. Unlike many other operators our CAA approved procedures account for this due to our experience in this area of TV filming.
So on Thursday our team head to the first location. Whilst on the way there, one of the team was checking and measuring locations on Google Earth. They identified four locations but one really stuck out, a church. As it was a weekday morning we did not expect many people about and it was literally across the road from the house we had to film.
On arrival, our polite crew spoke with the office manager who approved them to fly after having a check of our CAA permission and insurance which they cary as hard copies. Even if we are not asked for it, we always show it. We then have digital risk assessment forms and flight planning (such as the image above) which confirmed our distances met the requirements of our CAA permission (20+m from uncontrolled persons).
The flight went well and less than 60 minutes later our Flight Crew had bagged all shots and sent them to the director via the cloud, where he approved them. Next up was three more shots at two locations before the day was out.
Location 2 was hard as it was on of the busiest roads in the city, which we deemed impossible to fly over from alternate take off locations to ensure the safety of everyone in the area.
They discovered an enclosed rear courtyard to a surveying company who gave permission for the flight and the same documentation procedures were followed, allowing a full risk assessment of the location and hazards before flying.
Location 3 went even more smoothly as it was more suburban with plenty of space to take off from.
Without us having a system in place for approvals, risk assessments and verifying our documents on the road at locations, these flights would not have been able to take place. We invest heavily in such support tools as it means an almost impossible shoot for a leading BBC program was completed ahead of schedule, safely and with more footage than requested delivered.
If you want to read up further visit www.crowdedspacedrones.com