Error 404 - Oops We can't find what you're looking for. Please return home and try again. SA's leading price comparison site DIY Drones for the Evil Genius: Design, Build, and Customize Your Own Drones BUILDING YOUR OWN DRONES - A Beginner's Guide to Drones, UAVs and ROVs Parrot MiniDrones Hydrofoil Drone Orak (Black) Parrot Mini Drones Airborne Cargo Drone - Mars Parrot Mini Drones Airborne Cargo Drone - Trav The Complete Guide to Drones The Complete Guide to Drones (Paperback) All about Drones (Hardcover) Parrot Mini Drones Battery Charger Armadon Fighting Drones Action Figure Parrot MiniDrones Airborne Night Drone Blaze (Red) Drones - Science, Technology, and Engineering (Hardcover) Parrot Mini Drones Jumping Race Drone - Race Ma Parrot Mini Drones Jumping Race Drone - Race Je Parrot MiniDrones Jumping Race Drone Max (Red) Parrot MiniDrones Jumping Night Drone Buzz (White) DIY Drones for the Evil Genius: Design, Build, and Customize Your Own Drones (Paperback)

'drones on sale' Large drone ARES STAR quadcopter drone, 39cm wingspan LOCAL STOCK Parrot Mini Drones Evo Spare Battery Make: Drones - Teach an Arduino to Fly (Paperback)purchase spy drone Drones - What Everyone Needs to Know (Paperback)parrot ar drone motor failure Parrot Mini Drones Battery LiPoparrot ar drone support Parrot Mini Drones Evo Spare Battery and Charger Aww Industries Battle Drones 2 Pack Thermal camera for drones with screen and built in receiver Parrot Mini Drones Airborne Night - Swat Black Parrot Mini Drones Airborne Night - Maclane Pol Parrot Mini Drones Airborne Night - Blaze RedSouth Africa launched new regulations on Wednesday that will free up personal use of drones but significantly raise the bar on being able to deploy drones for commercial use in the country.

Drones have been used for a variety of purposes in South Africa for a while now including Kruger National Park’s anti-poaching efforts, and for a crime surveillance pilot project in Cape Town. Up till now, using drones without special approval from the South African Civil Aviation Authority was considered to be illegal. From today, anyone over the age of 18 can buy a drone with or without a license in South Africa. Once you have a drone, you’re free to operate it on your own property. You can choose to fly it for fun, or you could use it for more practical purposes like home surveillance–with the caveat that you keep a distance of 50m between the drone and you. The catch, however, is if you would like to use drones for commercial purposes, like: deliver goods, run a paid-for surveillance business or gather news. If these are your business interests, then South Africa’s new regulations (pdf) have onerous licensing demands lined up for you. Registering a drone is the easy part—it’s the licensing part that is a bit complicated, and frankly, onerous.

Getting a commercial license could take over two months to process, and cost you anything between $1200 and $4000, depending on the size of your drone. As part of the licensing process, you need to prove that you’re proficient in English, a doctor needs to medically examine you–and finally–you need to pass two tests: a skills test, and a theory test on operating a drone. It doesn’t end there. The license is only valid for 24 months, three months before the license expires, the South African Civil Aviation Authority needs to re-examine your suitability to operate a commercial drone. If you’re found to have contravened any of the new rules, you could be held liable for a $5000 fine, or spend 10 years in jail. Hennie Kieser, chairman of the Commercial Unmanned Aircraft Association of Southern Africa (CUAASA) said they commissioned Roelof Botha, one of South Africa’s top-rated economists, to do a baseline study on the possible economic impact of commercial drones.

“Our study found that if 60 medium companies were allowed to operate, they could inject at least $40 million into South Africa’s economy annually, and have other spin-off benefits in research and development,” said Kieser. Some legal experts are claiming the new drone laws could be among the most stringent on the globe. “There’s room to relax the requirements to would allow commercial users carry out their business operations without overriding the government’s security concern,” said Richard Chemaly, candidate attorney at one of South Africa’s leading firms, Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr. I suspect that as more countries begin to legalize drones, South Africa might decide to amend its regulations to enable a bit more flexibility for the commercial users.” South Africa is not alone among African countries concerned with how drones will be used. While Kenya is yet to introduce formal regulations for drones, the Kenyan Civil Aviation Authority issued a notice earlier this year, prohibiting the purchase and use of drones without clearance from the country’s defence ministry.

Sign up for the Quartz Africa Weekly Brief — the most important and interesting news from across the continent, in your inbox.South African Civil Aviation Authority Recreation Aviation Administration South Africa (model aircaft) Applying for an Operators’ Certificate: South African Model Aircraft Association “an RPA must be registered and may only be operated in terms of Part 101 of the South African Civil Aviation Regulations.”New rules regulating the use of remotely piloted aircraft systems, popularly known as drones, have been signed by the Minister of Transport, Ms Dipuo Peters and will officially be put into effect 1 July 2015. The Director of Civil Aviation, Poppy Khoza said the SACAA, a member of the ICAO RPAS Panel, had engaged with a number of key role players operators, manufacturers, and other airspace users and after months of amendments, refining and incorporating requests by various stakeholders; a draft was finally sent to the Minister of Transport for review and approval on 5 May 2015.

The SACAA has in fact taken the lead in formulating its own recommended standards and practices, ahead of ICAO. “In the absence of guiding documents from ICAO, regulators such as ourselves have had to swiftly derive measures to address the regulation deficiency in response to a growing demand to regulate this sector.” “The SACAA took into account the national safety and security needs. We also took into account the work done by ICAO thus far. Here the 12 most important things you need to know about the rules in accordance with part 101 of Civil Aviation regulations. You need to have a CAA approved and valid remote pilot licence as well as a letter of approval to operate the drone. The letter of approval will be valid for 12 months. While you do not need to have these documents when buying a drone, the seller will have to make you aware of the requirements as stipulated in the SACAA regulations. Drones cannot fly more than 400ft or 120m above the ground, nor within in 10km of an aerodrome.

Drones cannot be flown within 50m above or close to a person or crowd of people, structure or building – without prior SACAA approval. Nor can you fly drones adjacent to or above: a nuclear power plant a court of law The rules do apply to toy aircraft or unmanned free balloons or other types of aircraft which cannot be managed on a real-time basis during flight. You cannot use a public road for the take-off or landing of a drone. You cannot use a drone in adverse weather conditions, where your view of the drone is obstructed  since visual contact  must be maintained with the RPA by the operator – unless in approved beyond visual line of sight or night operations. Drones need to give way to all manned aircraft and should avoid passing over, under or in front of manned aircraft, unless it passes well clear and takes into account the effect of aircraft wake turbulence. RPA pilots will be required to tune into the air traffic services for the controlled airspace they will be flying the drone, reporting co-ordinates to said traffic controllers – all flight activity also needs to be recorded in a logbook.