Transport Canada rolls out drone education campaign
Posted October 21, 2014 12:48 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – Transport Canada is coming out with an awareness campaign that will hopefully make living with drones a little less annoying.
This follows an uptick in complaints about how some people are using drones. Vancouver Police are getting more complaints recently, mostly involving privacy concerns.
The federal transport minister announced the campaign today for recreational and commercial users. The first phase provides new safety guidelines and an infographic that makes it easy to find out if you need to apply for Transport Canada permission to fly.
The next phase, which will roll out this winter, includes online advertising, awareness videos and a revamped, simpler process for applying for permission.
Paul Baur with Kaizen Kinetics, a professional drone photography service, is glad something is being done to keep the people who use the little aircraft in check.
“Hobbyists are more than capable of affording and buying some more commercial-grade units. I personally know people who are hobbyists who have commercial-grade units and they’re just operating kind of freely and Transport Canada kind of assumes that they should know and follow what they aviation world follows.”
People using drones for commercial purposes already must have a permit and file flight plans. Baur thinks a test similar to the Power Squadron one for powerboats could work better than online ads.
“Even just a basic online course where you have to go through and sign off on it,” he suggests. “That way, there’s no claiming ignorance if something happens, right? If someone does something silly, then it’s like ‘Well, you’ve done the course; you’ve signed off on the responsibilities of it.”
