Get to know all the facts if buying someone a drone for Christmas
THEY’RE being described as the train set of this generation and in the past year have moved from being the preserve of armies and geeks to becoming firmly mainstream. Drones are expected to be one of the most popular presents on Christmas wish lists this year.
In fact demand is expected to be so great that the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) believes the number of drones in the country, which currently stands at 4,000 -5,000, will more than double over the festive period.
But while drones have been growing in popularity over the last number of years, they remain an alien term for many of us and we tend to associate them with military operations in countries like Iraq.
In reality a drone is any remotely piloted aircraft (system) (RPAS), which can be flown as a hobby or for commercial reasons, which include aerial photography, filming and survey.
Anyone can potentially operate a drone. You can spend from around €30 for a child’s toy micro-drone, (which would generally only be suitable for flying indoors) to €1,400 for the more expensive drones which are kitted out with an autopilot system and GPS.
Take the Yuneec Q500 Typhoon, which sells for €1,000. Its key selling points are its longer battery life, up to 50 minutes, and its three flight modes. Its smart mode is designed for beginners and it has a safety feature that returns a drone home if necessary.
Meanwhile, a professional unit could set you back up to €40,000.
In light of the expected increase in drones here, the IAA, which regulates the operation of drones in Irish airspace, has developed new rules to enhance drone safety from December 21.
The new legislation, which applies to all drones between 1kg and 7kg in weight, will enshrine 12 prohibitions outlined in the IAA’s current drone safety awareness campaign in law.
They are outlined on its website under the headline “Never Operate Your Drone…” Some of the guidelines are already illegal such as operating a drone closer than 5km from any aerodrome.
All drones over 1kg must also be registered with the IAA from the December date.
“We need to make sure that everybody and all airspace users are kept safe. Safety being our number one priority,” said the body’s director of safety regulation, Ralph James, recently on RTÉ Radio.
“If you are going to be a hobbyist, we would advise that you get some form of training [there are four drone schools in Ireland] that way you fly safe, enjoy your drone, and know the rules.”
There are countless examples of people operating drones in a dangerous and reckless manner, both and home and abroad, and in many instances they are unaware they are doing anything wrong.
The CEO of Sky Tec Ireland, Steve Slade, runs one of the IAA-registered training facilities for operating drones from the iMerc facility at Ringaskiddy in Co Cork. He also operates drones for work in film, video, and industrial inspections.
“The biggest risk is people don’t know what they are doing and they don’t know what they are operating. We can all cite cases, especially in the States and in other countries in Europe where people are flying these machines close to airfields.
“We had that case a couple of years ago where somebody was flying a drone over Cork City, completely ignorant of the fact that only 4km away there were aircraft landing at Cork Airport. If one of those machines had been sucked into the engine intake an aircraft, people would not be so quick to say, wow this is spectacular footage. They should not be flying anywhere near where there are aircraft flying. You cannot fly in controlled airspace unless you have permission from the IAA. It’s illegal.
“Flying over lots of people in a public park, flying over crowds on the beach because you want to capture some film, all of that is exposing the public to danger if the drone should fall out of the sky.”
Some of the cheaper drones on sale in popular toy and mainstream stores include the NicoAir QuaDrone NanoCam for just under €80 and the Bladez Remote Control Stunt Quad for €129. The more expensive Parrot Bebop Drone, which comes in an array of primary colours, streams footage to your smartphone and retails at approximately €549.
Parrot unveils the Bebop 2, a faster, longer-lasting dronehttps://t.co/YOs0ps2CFS
— The Verge (@verge) November 17, 2015
Slade said most of those will weigh less than 1kg and some IAA restrictions don’t apply because they would be very unlikely to fly to heights of 400ft and would be very unlikely to fly 300m away.
These drones are most suitable for use in a back garden and the IAA hopes these are the one people will buy as presents for children, he said.
Anybody who is trying to fly something heavier than 1kg should get some form of training, he said.
“It’s not expensive. It’s just an hour or an hour and a half.”
Damien Doyle is the owner of Copter Shop in Mornington, Co Meath, a specialist drone store, which sells the DJI brand of drones. He too is encouraging anybody who is buying a drone from him to get training.
“It’s vital,” he said.
Doyle said one of the risks of flying a drone is that it could “fall out of the sky”, which the majority of the time is due to human error.
What concerns him is not when people fly a drone in the middle of nowhere and crash it into a field, but where a “hobbyist who isn’t experienced with their drone tries to walk down O’Connell St and starts trying to fly it and then it hits someone or that kind of thing”.
“It’s not allowed, but go up onto YouTube and you’ll find the videos up there,” says the father of three, a self-confessed drone nut.
At a recent Data X drone conference in Mayo, his shop sold 22 drones in one day. And they are not cheap.
Thanks to @nickwhittome for drone demo today @SimonZebo not even close. Quality footage @Munsterrugby pic.twitter.com/Luy85Pw94T
— George Murray (@murrayg9) November 24, 2015
“The cheapest unit that we sell is over €800 [which is classed as a hobbyist system], and we do units up to €20,000. They range from 1.26kg to 11kg in weight,” said Doyle, who added that sales began taking off in the last three years.
Doyle’s love affair with drones began four years ago when his wife bought him one with a camera for Christmas.
“When I put it up into the air I was looking at things from a totally different perspective because of the height that it was at. To me it was just amazing.
“Just to see the world from up there was weird. I was intrigued by it.
“Flying [a drone] is exhilarating to me and to most people out there. It’s usually all about the picture itself,” said Doyle, who owns 12 drones.
Most of Doyle’s customers are men, and women buying for their husbands and boyfriends.
Parents also buy them for teenage sons and some even buy for their children.
“The big sellers would be units from the Phantom 3 range from €1,100 to €1,400,” said Doyle.
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