I decided to buy a drone (part one)

The original reason I wanted to buy a drone had nothing to do with art. I wanted to prove to the powers that be that the intersection by our house was as bad as I had been describing. I figured some decent drone footage would make my case.

But after seeing the amazing footage others had posted on YouTube, I realized that making some artistic video was also something I’d like to try. The next step was finding the right drone. Little did I know the giant rabbit hole I’d be diving into.

There are a lot of drones to choose from. I didn’t want to spend a ton of money, just in case I lost interest in the thing after a while. I still wanted decent quality and most importantly, intuitive use. I started to see a lot of people on YouTube crow about the newly released DJI Mavic Mini. DJI made this drone to get around the newly adopted laws for drones over 250 grams, which suddenly have a lot of regulations. You need to basically get a drone pilot certificate, register your drone with the government, and get authorization from NAV Canada any time you want to fly in controlled airspace (and there is a lot of controlled airspace let me tell you). It’s brutal!

So, the Mavic Mini, at 249 grams, was built to avoid all of these new regulations, as it is considered a micro drone, a toy. Regardless, local and federal regulation information online did not make it clear what is and is not allowed with a micro drone. In fact, federal regulations seemed to contradict each other, and municipal bylaws just made stuff up on the fly, like “you can fly where wildlife is NOT present, including birds”. Seriously? Is there any place where there are no birds? I wrote Transport Canada and got the real deal. “If you have a micro drone, you must never put people or aircraft in danger. Always fly responsibly." That seems both straight forward and is common sense. They also stressed that flying near emergency operations was prohibited. The list of points for safe flight follows:

To keep yourself and others safe, fly your drone:

• Where you can see it at all times
• Below 122 metres (400 feet) in the air
• Away from bystanders, at a minimum horizontal distance of 30 metres for basic operations
• Away from emergency operations and advertised events
• Avoid forest fires, outdoor concerts and parades
• 5.6 kilometres (3 nautical miles) from airports
• 1.9 kilometres (1 nautical mile) from heliports
• Far away from other aircraft
• Don’t fly anywhere near airplanes, helicopters and other drones