CITY FLYERS

Flying in a city centre can be daunting, especially for new PFCO (drone permission) holders.

In this blog post we will cover how we achieved permission to takeoff and land in the middle of Birmingham and what to consider when looking to fly in a City Centre.

1. Local authorities can be a blessing and a curse.

Local authorities can be a nightmare. There. I said it. You can call one council and be passed from department to department with nobody seemingly have a clue about the rules, the film process or even where in the city you are intending on flying from or over.

BUT when you do get to the right department you usually find a bunch of enthusiastic, like minded people who will help secure locations, contact other local authorities (police etc) and will always be at the end of the phone should you need anything.

In this case the department was Film Birmingham. They helped us secure our takeoff and landing locations, contacted surrounding building management to ensure we had their permission and joined us on the shoot to make sure everything went smoothly whilst providing an extra pair of eyes to help with any potential incursions.

2. Rooftops.

City centre rooftops are a GREAT way to keep your legal distance.

In this instance we chose to takeoff and land on the roof of Birmingham Library. With help from Film Birmingham we were able to secure the top roof terrace as a takeoff and landing area. With careful barrier placement we were able to ensure that any potential incursion were unable to affect our operations.

Our second takeoff location for the top down image was the building site opposite the Library. Again Film Birmingham came to the rescue and secured permission from the site manager to takeoff and land in the car park behind the site. As it was a weekend there were no cars on site and minimal staff on site allowing for another very easy to control TO/LA site.

3. Where are the people?

Careful planning of your flight paths is an ESSENTIAL part of any City flying.

In this instance we had the adjacent buildings to work with. The Rep theatre and the ICC both join together (bar one thin path) to form one giant flying area.

The only sticking point is that to get to the ICC roof, you have to fly over a pedestrian walkway. The only option was to ascend to a decent altitude above The Rep (in this case we opted for around 80m) and then in one smooth flight, take a B Line over the pathway.

Using the high altitude and high speed ‘transit’ over the area allowed us to clear the populated area safely as any failure combined with the speed would have carried the drone safely over the walkway and onto the roof of the Arena.

Once we were over the ICC there were multiple angles we could safely achieve for the client.

We later used the same principle to fly over the walkway between the car park and the building site for the top down shot.

4. Weather

Ah. The age old question! What is the weather like? More specifically wind speed. If the wind speed is high or it is particularly gusty, where will your drone go if a failure occurred? Where will the wind make your drone drift if you lose GPS?

If the answer to the above is over a densely populated are then it may be worth a date change or if that is not possible an adjustment to the flight plans may be required to ensure the flight is safe.

5. Signal and Compass

Buildings can soak up your signal and make your drone act in ways which may catch you out, Specifically when flying near or around metal structures.

When we were taking off from the library roof, the drone would make a sharp movement to the left just past the rail when leaving the buildings footprint. Experience told me that this was probably a GPS error caused by the metal in the building (if you haven’t seen it yet it looks like a giant golden metal box)

It was an easy one to counter as I just made sure to takeoff and land in ATTI, switching to GPS once over The Rep but it is something that has affected us many times when taking off in industrial units, on car park roofs or near pretty much any modern structure.

6. Gulls

Yep, you read that right. Gulls. They single handedly ruin your fish and chips by the seaside and if you’re not careful they can ruin your flight plans. Luckily we picked to shoot on the day a very helpful lady brings a Harris Hawk to the library roof to scare the gulls away. But if you don’t have a Harris Hawk in your kit bag we’ve found the following techniques work (almost) all the time.

Step one, carry some '‘distraction chicken’. We all know that you shouldn’t feed the gulls but if the only option of a safe takeoff and landing is to distract them away from the area with food then so be it!

Step two is to climb FAST. Once above the gulls they won’t attack. You may get one or two follow you up but they only attack from above so stay well above them if you can. Same with landing, land fast and if necessary take it down to a low altitude before manoeuvring to the landing location if you can’t bring it straight down due to a flock above the landing site.

To conclude

All of the above points are considerations for any kind of flight near or over a city. We may not have covered every single consideration for instance Heli flight paths over cities like London, Alternative TO/LA spots, how the time of day can open up many opportunities when it comes to city flying but I hope that the above has proven helpful wether you are a pilot yourself or someone considering hiring a pilot to shoot in a city or populated area.

Safe flying!