As of yesterday the UK rules for owning and flying a drone in the UK changed.

Previously I only required an operators id to fly my Dji Mini 4 pro because it came in at 249g. Getting an operators id wasn’t hard as long as you had the pennies to pay for it you could get it. The only hassle about it, if you can call it that, is it needs renewing each year. The operators id needs displaying somewhere on the drone itself.

As of yesterday to fly my drone I needed to also have a flyer id. To get a flyer id you need to take a forty question multiple choice test. Which is free to take, and you can take as many times as you like until you get a pass (which is 30 out 40 questions right). This flyer id is valid for five years.

So on New Year’s Eve I took the online test and passed first time (34/40). It’s not as impressive as it sounds. You can refer to the drone code as it’s called during the test. In fact they actively encourage it. One thing I did like at the end was for the ones you got wrong it gives the correct answer.

I will also need from the start of 2028 make sure that my drone transmits a remote id. Technically drones transmitting a remote id kicks in from yesterday too. However “legacy” drones have a transition period before they have to. My drone falls into this “legacy” area.

I’ve looked into if my drone can be upgraded in some way to do this and the answer is technically yes. It can do it now if I use the enhanced batteries with it. Which I think I may have.

Another new requirement as of yesterday is if flying at night the drone has to have a flashing green light on it. Which I believe mine has but when using the camera it may switch off. I need to investigate this more.

I haven’t done much with my drone. But I want to. And the plan is to. Like my Dji action 4 camera I want to do more with them. However I’m not sure how I’m going to use them because I want to avoid using, or falling back on the tropes and cliches currently in vogue with outdoor videos. I’ll leave my subconscious to ponder that one for me in the background.