The UK rules, in order
UK drone law treats a hobby drone as an aircraft, and it puts the same five questions to every one of them: what the machine weighs, whether it carries a camera, who is responsible for it, who is flying it, and where and when the flight takes place. Those five answers decide which identifiers the flight needs, how far the aircraft has to stay from people and buildings, and whether the piece of sky above the field you are standing in is restricted. The requirements are published by the Civil Aviation Authority, the body that regulates civil aviation in the United Kingdom. They are revised from time to time, so the version on the CAA's own pages is the one that describes the position on the day of the flight.
The five questions, and the order they arrive in
The five questions arrive in a fixed order because each one narrows the next. Weight is first, since it decides the class the aircraft sits in before anything else is considered. The camera comes second, because a lens changes the picture even on a machine light enough to be exempt from most of what follows. Responsibility and pilot come third and fourth, and they are two separate matters that a single word in common use runs together. Place and time come last, because they change from flight to flight while the first four do not.
- Weigh the aircraft, including its battery, propellers and anything bolted to it, and note which side of the 250 gram boundary it falls.
- Establish whether it carries a camera or any other sensor that can record a person.
- Identify who is responsible for the aircraft, which is a question about ownership and control rather than about flying skill.
- Identify who is at the controls, which is a question about a person and a test rather than about a machine.
- Check the airspace above the take-off point, and the light, on the day.
Two identifiers sit behind questions three and four. One attaches to whoever is responsible for the aircraft and is marked on the airframe itself. The other attaches to the person flying and is earned by passing a theory test. The word licence is used for both in ordinary speech and it fits neither. The drone licence question sets out what the two identifiers are and why the word misleads.
What the weight of the aircraft decides
Weight decides the class before any other attribute is looked at, and the boundary that matters most to a first-time buyer is 250 grams. The CAA scheme treats aircraft below that mass differently from aircraft at or above it, because a lighter airframe carries less kinetic energy and does less harm if it comes down on somebody. A great many machines sold to hobby flyers are built to sit just under the line for exactly that reason, and their published weight is quoted with the standard battery fitted.
Weight does not decide the height ceiling. The published ceiling for this kind of flying is 400 feet, which is 120 metres, measured above the surface rather than above sea level, and it applies to the lightest machine in the shop as much as it does to a large camera aircraft. Weight also does not decide the requirement to keep the aircraft where you can see it with your own eyes, which is the single constraint that shapes more hobby flights than any other.
What a camera on board decides
A camera on board pulls a second body into the picture. Airspace and airworthiness sit with the CAA; personal data sits with the Information Commissioner's Office, which publishes guidance on recording identifiable people. A camera is also one of the attributes that decides whether the identifier attached to the person responsible for the aircraft is required at all, so a very light machine with a lens on it is not in the same position as the same machine without one. The current test for that is on the CAA's registration pages, and it has been adjusted before.
The practical consequence is easy to state. A drone with a camera is a recording device that happens to fly, and the person on the ground below it will treat it as one. That is a separate matter from whether the flight itself is permitted, and it is the reason two people can disagree about the same flight while both being right about their own half of it.
What the ground under your feet decides
The ground under your feet decides two different things, and readers routinely merge them. The first is airspace: a flight restriction zone around a protected aerodrome, a restricted area over certain sites, and temporary restrictions raised for an event. Those are restrictions on the air, and they hold whoever owns the field below. The second is land: a landowner, a local authority or a body such as a national park authority can restrict taking off and landing on ground it controls, through byelaws or through the terms on which the public is admitted. That is a restriction on the ground, and it says nothing about the air.
Separation from people and from buildings sits with the first of those two. The requirements set a distance the aircraft has to keep from people who are not involved in the flight, and a larger distance from crowds and from residential, commercial, industrial or recreational areas. The exact distances depend on the weight and class marking of the aircraft, so a reader who has memorised one figure has memorised only their own machine's figure. The CAA publishes the current set.
What the light and the time of day decide
Light decides very little in the requirements and a great deal in practice. The height ceiling after dark is the same 400 feet it is at noon. The separation distances are the same. What changes is the pilot: an aircraft two hundred metres away at dusk is a set of moving lights with no discernible orientation, and the requirement to keep it in unaided sight becomes the limiting factor rather than a formality. Judging distance, attitude and drift by eye is the skill that fails first when the light goes.
Cover, and where each requirement is published
The fifth thing readers ask about is Insurance, and it is the one least settled by weight or place. Third party liability cover answers for damage the aircraft does to somebody else, and the categories, the exemptions and the usual routes to a policy for a recreational flyer are set out separately. Nothing on this site is sold, recommended or presented as a current price, here or anywhere else on Line of Sight.
Every requirement named on this page is published by the Civil Aviation Authority, and the CAA revises them: boundaries move, class markings phase in, and the tests attached to cameras and to weight have been changed before and can be changed again. This page describes what the requirements are about and the order in which they apply. It does not interpret them for any particular aircraft, place or flight, and it is not legal advice. Before flying, read the current version on the CAA's own pages.