I know I'm probably going to get some heat for posting this, but some of you may enjoy a little collage of a "day in the life of a BlackSheep" nonetheless
If it helps, all approvals necessary were obtained, an army of ground helpers were available, as well as constant communication with the heliport tower to stay in the loop about incoming traffic.
Comments
Hi trappy,
well, this is because there is not a clear legislation about it. For me, flying a populated area only a few meters over ground is "aerobatics" and therefore a dangerous activity.
About the paper plane, you are right and the same, the laws are not clear enough. Meanwhile, we have to take advantage of flying without too much legal pressure xD.
Thats probably the best view of the University of Virginia ive seen in a long time, any chance you could get to a real school and come fly all over Virginia Tech? Go Hokies
Not sure I did any acrobatics. We were capturing footage. It wasn't for fun, actually, but having some fun in the meantime should not be forbidden I hope. In any case, if you read UAV laws around the world right now, I don't think there is any way around new laws in the US. If I throw a paper plane out the window in my country, I'm liable for up to 20'000 EUR (about 25'000 USD) in penalty for violation of the civil air code. Go figure :)
Yeah trappy, reading your posts, I am pretty sure that you have done everything right.
But I agree with Hai Tran, it is a matter of time that this will be illegal. Right now, if I am not wrong, aerobatics are forbidden, excepting the allowed areas for this, which are pretty far from the populated areas.
The FAA for instance, for RC and hobby UAVs, only defines vaguely some maximum terms (like not more 300m over ground, always staying in line of sight, etc).
Don't get my wrong, I am the first which loves this kind of activities, but on the other hand I am pretty sure (like you) that they are potentially very dangerous, and they are just for fun (like "real" aerobatics). Therefore the administration will say something about it sooner or later.
Hai Tran, not sure what would make my flights illegal. I've had my fair share of contact with the legal section of our hobby, I told them they need local authority permission because of flying low over roads, they needed permission of the property owners for launch and landing, and they needed to have lookouts (which isn't really a legal requirement, but a way for me to stay sane while under the goggles). I'm not sure what other permissions they asked for and received, I've got the document somewhere in my bag. Not really interested in digging into this any deeper either, if someone thinks he needs to press charges that's when I'll spend some time and look into it. We've got over 200 videos with at least 10'000 flights, if I wrote a legal document for each flight I could quit my day job :)
I don't want to spoil it but, surely civil aviation laws don't allow flights like that.....and those laws should be changed because they were written to accommodate anything from a 100gram foamy to a gas turbine weighing 150kg!
Keep up the videos trappy.
thanks Fab!
John, yes that's only GoPro footage.
We also have a "TBS69" on board that we use for flying, especially towards the end the GoPro is completely dark and very hard to see, the TBS69 has much better properties in that regard so that's why we use it for our "visual". The GoPro is just a passive recorder.
http://www.team-blacksheep.com/products/product:11
Is the video camera a GoPro? and do you have other cameras on board? The videos are way cool.
Sure, we have sent a list of our planned flights as well as time and dates and requests to close roads at these times. The requests to close roads were denied, the flights were approved. We also had contact with the medical helicopter tower as required and got a host of other approvals including from the hospital director. all patients were notified, all staff were notified, etc etc. I think the preparations took 10 days, the actual flying was done in 1 day :)
First of all, the video is really cool :P
But you are right, I will start "to hot" this post. But really really have you been officialy approved for aerobatics/stunning over a populated area? It would be the first time I have heard about it.
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