ZA drone legislation

http://www.enca.com/south-africa/you-could-face-jail-or-a-fine-for-flying-drones Drone legislation defines a drone as being above 1kg and a park flyer below this weight. Park flyers are allowed to be flown in a restricted way in residential areas or at least there hasn't been any criminal prosecutions about the matter. Keep a scale, body cam and copy of the CAA legislation with you if the SAPS queries your "drone" activity. The fact that the park flyer uses a Pixhawk IMU and flies 10km autonomously is irrelevant, the intent of the law is to prevent harm from the kinetic impact from said drone or park flyer on people. Is this what the law says? No, its an opinion, there is no law, only legislation. A court case will determine the law and that won't happen for mundane activities as long as the NPA remains reasonable.

The one kg rule is arbitrary, adding collision avoidance could take the weight to 3kg:there is no law as to what constitutes a drone,there is no court ruling. Civil aviation's lawyers don't determine the law. Your common sense should be your guiding light. If you have a neighbor who routinely flies his human carrying helicopter below the legal limit, then installing sense and avoid should be the priority.

CAA comments on drones makes statements about what is legal or not: this is not for the CAA to decide, only the courts can do this and only if the NPA our constitional guardian against capriciousness prosecutes. The statements by the CAA for example on the commercial usage of drones are just that, statements. In all probability the NPA won't get involved in what amounts to a bribery fraud racked collusion concocted by lawyers for fee generation. The intent of the commercial drone usage clause is to extort money, not to enable safe drone operation. In fact it will make the situation worse as it now drives commercial drone usage underground. http://www.cranfield.co.za/AviationCourses/RPLRemotePilotLicenseTraining/tabid/144/language/en-ZA/Default.aspx

It would set a catastrophic precedent if a criminal conviction is established for any type of commercial non licensed activity. This will be used by the cell phone company license holders to potentially criminalize anyone that threatens their business model. And it won't just stop at communications, the precedent will extend to all spheres of the economy. Criminalizing non licensed commercial drone usage is just the pretext the legal profession is seeking to shut down competition in other spheres of activity.

A tethered hovering drone is used to create a wifi hotspot, the cell companies wants to shut this down.

Use a SIRA fronting company park flyer as a rapid response airship on an Infrared leds perimeter breach in a residential area. This would be an attempt to test the CAA law, if there is a prosecution then most likely a fine would be levied and not a jail sentence. Not a single criminal drone prosecution has yet taken place in ZA. The NPA should indicate what they consider acceptable. This allows us to game the system, if all that ever would happen is a fine imposition, then just pay the fines and get another person to take over operations.

links
FCA ruling