Hai,

    Nicely done.  You seem to be making real progress even on these tricky legal barriers (in australia).  I also saw you were mention in an AUVSI feature recently.  Congrats.

Looks like it takes 2 operators to Keep it flying 4 rotors each?any time they are flown with skill they look great !

Do you think it is safer than a glider?

Only safer near people with no hair to get tangled in the propellers, sunglasses for eye protection, & large stomachs to cushion the impact.  Exactly as pictured.

There's a relationship between safe horizontal distance and altitude. When you fly 30m overhead, probably 10-30m horizontal distance is a good measure. When a single prop fails, you'll be amazed how fast these things glide uncontrollably to a crash position. When flown at eye level, I wouldn't mind being 5 meters away or even somewhat closer, depending on how erratic the thing moves around and who's controlling it.

I'm not willing to spend my time within 20m of a heli, type T-REX 450 or so, no matter who's controlling it and would probably take 30m as a safe distance.

Blimps are totally harmless, except for the static electricity they build up :).

narwal: did you notice the "?" in the headline?

Hai Tran: Congratulations This will help all of us - What exactly are the Rules for you now?

@Hawhoo.  The reduced safety distance is 5m.  Hopefully after we log many more safe flights, the safety regulator might see that multicopters are safer than other types of model aircraft, and the regulations will be changed to all multicopters whether they be model aircraft or UAV to be exempt from the 30m rule which were really aimed at larger, faster, heavier, aircraft.

Like other certified UAV operators in Australia, we are pushing the boundaries and making progress towards having civilian UAVs operations accepted by the public through going through doing the right thing, going through the right channels and getting precedents like this one. 

Unlike a number of businesses using model aircraft for commercial use, and ignoring what might appear as restrictive regulations, we are trying to show that it is possible to conduct commercial UAV operations whilst complying with civil aviation safety regulations.

The only people that should be concerned with what we are doing are those who flaunt the law, and claim that it is too hard to comply with it, because we are showing that it is possible to work within the laws.

Personally I would not want to be within 5 meters of a large multi-meat-slicer-copter.  MTBF of hobby-grade motors and ESCs is probably in the tens, maybe hundreds of hours.  8x the powertrains = 8x the chances of a failure. Hope your copter can handle a motor failure gracefully.  Would much rather be hit by a Bixler, Easy-star etc. 

I'd happily take a MQX or AR Drone in the head any day :-)