Drones are getting a bad rap. After the latest incident with a British Airways plane and a drone over Heathrow, the popular right-wing press is calling for them to be banned.
We want to our voice to the debate. Tallboy is a huge fan of using drones in video production – they’ve changed the face of corporate video over the last few years. We get some fantastic results at a fraction of the cost of hiring a helicopter. Drones make it possible to capture aerial scenes that are visually breath taking. Using drone footage gives corporate videos that extra pizzazz.
That extra pizzazz does come at a cost. Not the cost of the drone – you can pick them up for under £100 in the high street. (Although the quality of the camera does vary). The cost is about making sure that extra pizzazz is shot both responsibly and safely.
Tallboy abides by the Civil Aviation Authority laws and regulations; all our drone operators are licenced pilots or being currently been trained to fly. When we have a complicated shoot, we hire in the best expertise. We never fly a drone without two people operating it – one to fly and one to spot, to make sure the drone never flies into a congested area or over a crowd of people. We take notice of the weather and the conditions and it’s always safety first – we’ll not fly if there is a potential risk.
At the moment, becoming licensed is based on teaching someone to fly an aircraft and is complicated with at least two days in the classroom together with practical experience. Although there are a lot of issues that need to be addressed before goes airborne with a drone – at Tallboy, we believe the licensing process is too hard. If the licensing process could be simplified, more people will become qualified and therefore drones will be flown in a responsible way.
Education – not a knee-jerk ban – is the way to ensure that these magnificent machines are used in the way they are intended for. The accidents that do happen usually occur because the operator has not had training – inevitably because the training is too complicated and expensive.
At Tallboy, we love flying drones, and will continue to use them in a responsible way to great some great results for our corporate video productions. Watch our highlights reel and see how a drone in the right hands is a wondrous thing.
Update on the London Heathrow incident. Apparently the plane may have been hit by a plastic bag, according to an article in the Telegraph.
“The reported drone strike on Sunday has not been confirmed it was actually a drone. It was the local police force that tweeted that they had a report of a drone striking an aircraft.
“And indeed the early reports of a dent in the front of the plane were not confirmed – there was no actual damage to the plane and there’s indeed some speculation that it may have even been a plastic bag or something. ”
