SACAA

drone ban
http://www.zigzag.co.za/features/exclusives/no-fly-zone-drones-banned-in-south-africa/

"...The fact is that the SACAA has not given any concession or approval to any organisation, individual, institution or government entity to operate UAS within the civil aviation airspace." They can not approve the use of drones because there is no legislation in place for them to do so. In their own words "South African civil aviation legislation does not currently provide for certification, registration and operation of drones in South African airspace." They can not enforce a law that does nor exist, neither can they grab a fine out of the sky. They obviously don't know that Parlement makes lawsn not public officials...."

In other words, some lawyer explained to the SACAA that they never had authority to provide permission in the first place to the television production companies because the SACAA cannot make up its own rules. They in effect violated civil aviation legislation on RC aircraft. From the NPA's perspective the whole RC aircraft/UAV camera drone distinction is a false dichotomy, they are RC aircraft. The SACAA is tasked with implementing aviation legislation, how it managed to escape anyones notice that the "permissions" they provided to allow Filming crews flying RC aircraft over dense populated areas, was as ridiculous as the SAPS providing "permission" for criminals to rob a bank.

In other words the SACAA and the minister of finance don't want to be held liable for millions of dollars in pay-outs to the families of dead passengers if by chance such an RC aircraft gets sucked into the engine of a Boeing. The SACAA is trying to protect themselves from liability should anything go wrong, not to crack down on some filming crew taking pictures of ducks.

The distinction between implementation and enforcement is crucial, in South-Africa only the NPA/Courts can enforce legislation. The SACAA's defacto powers of prosecution was due to the fact that the NPA cannot simply ignore dangerous violations of aviation law when pressed on the issue by the SACAA, they have no choice but to prosecute where precedent cases are established and the reasonable man principle was violated. The SACAA is tasked with implementing the dictates or parliament, the courts/NPA with enforcing such dictates at the discretion of the NPA, as only they can prosecute anybody.

Thus film crews can safely go ahead and film, because they are taking precautions, the NPA won't do anything about, they are not a bunch of robocops, vast and liberal discretion is available to them.


 * "http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/film-industry-concerned-about-camera-drone-ban-1.1689174...UAVs are aircraft that fly without a pilot and can be controlled remotely by someone on the ground, in another aircraft or by computer. Earlier this month the SACAA urged people to refrain from using UAVs without approval from the authority...."

South-Africa is one of the few countries in the world where only the courts decide what is illegal, the SACAA did not cite any court rulings, they and Icasa do not determine what the law says. And thankfully no court will get to rule on the matter if the NPA decides not to prosecute.

"http://www.iol.co.za/capetimes/film-industry-concerned-about-camera-drone-ban-1.1689174...In the meantime they have asked that the SACAA adopt the policy for model aircraft and apply it to camera drones. This will mean putting restrictions in place such as, flying only under 120m, no flying within 4.2 nautical miles of an airport, no autopilot flying or night flying and no flying over public property...."

Which NPA will interpret with the reasonable man principle, this law is obviously reasonable so far as it forbids flying a drone from Sandton to Randburg, it would be chaos if thousands of people could swarm the skies with drones everywhere on a sight seeing expedition. What NPA will tolerate is Quad frames on standby flying up when a house robbery is in progress to provide that brief 5min surveillance to the response team in a tight radius around the incident. At the very least he will be reluctant to prosecute the Madiba connected owner of the security company.

The SACAA did not approve the use of camera drones as there are no regulations guiding its use. Anyone using these UAVs did so illegally, the SACAA said.

In other words, the SACAA attempted to make some sort of distinction between RC aircraft without an Diydrones arducopter autopilot and RC aircraft with one. But there is no legislation which makes such distinction, it only describes rules for RC aircraft and UAV in this context is just a more fancy name for RC aircraft. The SACAA cannot legislate on this matter, only parliament can and until such a time as parliament does, the NPA will treat UAV's the same as they treat RC aircraft.

Note that in South-Africa, parliament legislates as opposed to the legislative chaos in the US. This is but the SACAA interpretation of existing law. It is very easy to test their resolve. Take somebody who considers jail their second home and pay him lots of bitcoin, then make some sort of public announcement that he will fly a camera drone .... and see what gerrie Nel will do about it. Only the NPA can prosecute, they are unlikely to become unreasonable about the issue of drones. And should they prosecute even a brazen violation of airspace it could unleash a whole prosecutorial chain of events. Prosecutors are also the victims of crime and would want to have a Flir fitted drone silently patrolling their houses and streets from 100m. The reasonable man principle applies.

The best candidates would be the children of Pres.Zuma, they are above the law. One of his sons for example has a 007 Martini license. If top ANC connected people were to fly drones in a reasonable manner, then Gerrie Nel would be less likely to prosecute DA supporters trying to protect their wives and children.

One of Mandela's grand children is very upset about not getting a proper inheritance. He must setup his own SIRA registered security company and then start flying drones at night. At the very least, being a Mandela descendant , he will get an easy time in jail, if Gerrie Nel ever pushes the issue that far.

Call the SACAA's bluf and see what happens, this will force the NPA to clarify their position on the issue at the very least. Obviously flying a "drone" or RC aircraft over Airforce base Waterkloof will get you into trouble. This is South-Africa, with the worlds most reasonable legal system in the world. Crafted by F.W. de Klerk to prevent abuse of power.