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Feet to the flames

10 Jan 2025

As regular readers will know, I'm no stranger to battling bureacurats and rule-makers.

This summer I intend to continue such activities, particularly in respect to the regulations surrounding my favourite activity -- flying drones and RC model aircraft.

Right now, New Zealanders who want to engage in this hobby are hobbled by a set of rules (CAR101) that are a decade out of date and, when compared to many other first-world countries, are ridiculously restrictive.

It's very much time for some regulatory reform in this area and indeed, even the agencies responsible appeared to think so almost six years ago when they issued a consultation inviting the public to make suggestions.

That was in 2019. It's now 2025 and *nothing* has come of it.

So what's my strategy now?

Well back in 2015, when the current ruleset was created and enacted, the CAA had little historical data to go on when trying to ascertain the risk associated with these new-fangled multi-rotor drones. As a result, they erred on the side of caution with a very restrictive set of rules.

They can be forgiven for taking this extra-cautious approach in the face of scant hard data.

However, it's been TEN YEARS and we now have around 15 years of data that prove, beyond any doubt, that the recreational use of these multirotor drones is incredibly low risk -- far lower than CAA can have ever imagined.

Yet the same, highly restrictive rules remain in effect -- rules that were created in the belief that these things would bring down aircraft and cause widespread injury to property and person.

In a modern democratic, free society, citizens ought to have the right to the enjoyment of life. Hell, this is even enshrined in the US Constitution, it's that fundamental. When woefully outdated regulations unreasonably deny such a right then that is unacceptable. Yet that is exactly the situation we have here in New Zealand with respect to drones and model aircraft.

How ridiculous are our rules?

Well if you take a sheet of A4 paper, fold it into a paper aeroplane and throw it into the air outside your own property then you're almost certainly in breach of CAR101.207 because you are deemed to be flying it over property without the owner's expressed permission.

Throw that same (or another) paper airplane in the carpark of your local airport and you'll not only be in breach of CAR101.207 but also CAR101.205 because you're flying it within 4Km of an airfield without the necessary certifications and without an "arrangement" with the airfield operator.

Yes, according to the NZ regulations, the same rules apply to a tiny paper dart as apply to one of those far bigger commercial multirotor drones that are often used for surveying, mapping or professional videography. Does that make sense?

CAA's regulations are *not* risk-based. Clearly they can not be if they consider a 20g child's toy to represent exactly the same level of risk as a 14.9Kg commercial drone -- yet they are regulated as if they were identical.

I have been told by CAA that they have "risk based enforcement" rather than risk-based regulation.

What this basically means is that in some cases, such as throwing a paper dart in an airport carpark, they won't actually prosecute the regulatory breach because the risks created are so low.

Whilst on the face of it, this might sound like a very pragmatic way to deal with things, it is in fact simply further proof that the regulations themselves are deeply flawed.

If it is sometimes safe to break a regulation and sometimes not then that regulation is poorly written. At the very least, the clause "except when safe to do so" needs to be added in order to indicate that this will be subject to risk-based enforcement.

I mean, do we really want to be teaching our kids that "it's okay to break the rules so long as nobody is put at risk"?

Who gets to decide whether the level of risk created is acceptable anyway?

The only reason NZ needs "risk based enforcement" is because its regs are a decade out of date and even CAA recognise that they'd be laughed out of court if they tried to enforce them in many cases.

Why am I raising this issue right now?

Well on New Year's eve, someone flew a drone over Auckland's CBD and got some images of the fireworks being let off from the Sky Tower. According to the media, this has prompted an investigation by CAA who've stated "Civil Aviation rules prohibit flying over people or property without consent, at night, within 4km of an aerodrome, or higher than 120m from the ground", presumably all things that are alleged for the flight in question.

If found in violation of these regulations, I would expect the operator of that drone to be pinged with more than a thousand dollars in fines -- perhaps as much as $3K.

Now compare that with the situation in Canada and the UK. In those countries, that same flight, if performed with one of the now very popular sub-250g mini-drones, could have been 100 percent legal.

Is there something magical about the air in Canada or the UK that would reduce the risks associated with such a flight?

Of course not -- it's just that in these countries they have taken the time to do their job properly and examine the *actual* risk, as proven by around 15 years of hard data now, and acknowledged that such small craft pose a near-zero risk to person or property. They also acknowledge that the owners of such craft have a right to the enjoyment of their hobby and ought not be unreasonably prevented from engaging in such activities.

Here in New Zealand -- tossing a paper dart in the carpark of your local airport is an offense because, some how, the CAA thinks property could be damaged or people could be badly injured.

The big problem now, as can clearly be seen on the comments left on a video I posted recently about our rules, is that people have lost all respect for our draconian regulations and seem little alternative but to ignore them. That means the regulations become completely ineffective -- not a good situation.

So... with all this in mind, I feel it's necessary to call a halt to this slackness on the part of our regulators and perhaps hold their feet to the flames. I *will* be throwing paper airplanes in airport car-parks and committing a number of other offenses against CAR101 whilst challenging the enforcers of these regs to take me to court so that a judge can see how ridiculously over-regulated we now are in this area.

At the very least this may embarrass the government enough to have them get their fingers out of their collective backsides and progress a review of these regulations.

However, I am aware that odds are, CAA will come back with the same cop-out response I got last time I challenged them to prosecute me for violating the regs without creating any risk to anyone. On that occasion, after three months of investigation (at god-knows what cost) their verdict was "it is not in the public interest to prosecute". What they actually meant was "we do not wish to risk an unfavourable precedent being set".

This time I'm prepared for that type of response so let them try it again and see what happens.

Stay tuned, you know this will be interesting.

Carpe Diem folks!

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