Two Permissions, One Flight: the Air and the Ground
Every drone flight starts and ends on somebody’s ground. That sounds too obvious to need saying, and yet it is the part of a job that most often changes the plan, because the place a building is best photographed from is frequently not a place the client controls. The building may be tight to the road, the only clear line of sight may be from the yard next door, or the site may be surrounded by land that belongs to a council, a neighbour or a landlord who has never heard of the project.
An Operational Authorisation from the Civil Aviation Authority is an aviation permission. It gives no right to stand on, launch from or land on anyone’s land. That permission comes from whoever owns or leases the ground, and it has to be in place before the day, not negotiated across a fence when the crew arrives.
This piece is about that practical question and nothing else: where the aircraft takes off and lands, whose say-so that needs, what happens when the client does not own the site, and how Drone Media Imaging settles it during planning so the flight day is spent flying. It is a short answer to a question that comes up on almost every job.
Blog Content TL;DR...
The short version of where a drone can take off and land, and who has to agree to it.
- Two different permissions. Flying is governed by aviation law and the operator’s authorisation. Standing on, launching from and landing on the ground needs the landowner’s or leaseholder’s agreement.
- The client is often not the landowner. A contractor, a tenant or a managing agent may not have the authority to grant access to the ground, so it is checked rather than assumed.
- The best vantage point is often next door. Neighbouring land is approached for permission during planning, and the arrangement is written down.
- Public land is not free land. Parks and open spaces belong to somebody, usually a local authority, and byelaws can restrict where a drone is flown from.
- It is settled at the desk and confirmed on site. Permission is determined in planning, recorded in the job, and confirmed on the day before anything is unpacked.
The aircraft needs a permission for the air and a separate one for the ground, and the ground is the one people forget.
The Ground Is Not Covered by the Flying Permission
What an aviation authorisation does and does not give you
The authorisation, the qualifications, the insurance and the airspace checks are the operator’s responsibility and they travel with the crew. What does not travel with the crew is any right to the ground they are standing on.
Two permissions, from two different people
The permission to fly comes from aviation law and from the operator’s authorisation with the Civil Aviation Authority. Where a site sits inside an airport’s flight restriction zone, a further permission comes from the airport itself. None of those has anything to say about whose field, yard, car park or forecourt the aircraft lifts off from. That is a civil matter, and the answer comes from whoever owns or leases the land.
Drone Media Imaging obtains permission for take-off and landing from the landowner or leaseholder before every flight. It is part of the desk planning for the job, it is recorded in the job file, and it is confirmed again on the location survey before anything is unpacked. Where the person who booked the work is not the landowner, a written flight location permission is obtained from the person who is.
Why the take-off point matters more than it looks
Under the framework most of our work is flown to, uninvolved people are kept 30 metres from the aircraft at take-off and landing and 50 metres once it is in the air, so the launch point has to be somewhere that separation can actually be held. A pavement outside the site gate rarely is. A controlled area inside the fence, or a neighbouring yard arranged in advance, usually is, and that is what decides where the flight is planned from.
where can a drone take off from, landowner permission for drone take off and landing, flying a drone from a neighbour's landwhere can a drone take off from, landowner permission for drone take off and landing, flying a drone from a neighbour's land
When the Client Does Not Own the Ground
On a construction site, a rented unit or a managed building, the person commissioning the photographs is very often not the person who owns the land. A main contractor controls a site but does not own it. A tenant occupies a building on a lease that may say nothing about aircraft. None of this stops a job, but each of them changes who has to say yes.
Whose yes counts
The permission needed is from whoever has the right to grant access to that ground, which may be the owner, the leaseholder or someone formally acting for them. On a live site that is usually the principal contractor, who controls access and the permit to work, and it is their confirmation that goes in the job file. On a leased building, a question to the landlord early avoids a refusal discovered on the day, which is a wasted visit for everyone.
When the best view is from next door
The place a building photographs best from is frequently not on the site at all. A frontage tight to the road often cannot be flown from its own forecourt without taking the aircraft over the pavement and the people on it, so the sensible launch point is a neighbouring yard, a car park or a field across the way. That is a separate permission from a separate owner, approached during planning rather than on the morning. Out-of-hours arrangements, such as using a neighbouring business’s premises when it is closed, are often the easiest to agree, and they are written down so that nobody on either side is relying on memory.
The client is not expected to sort this out. Telling us early that the site is leased, shared or hemmed in is what lets us do it in time.
Public Land, Roads, and Settling It Before the Day
The hardest ground to launch from is the ground that seems to belong to nobody. A park, a verge or a village green looks like the obvious answer when the site itself is unusable, and it is the one most likely to cause a problem.
Public is not the same as free
Public open space is owned and managed by somebody, usually a local authority, and it comes with its own rules. The Civil Aviation Authority’s guidance is plain that byelaws can restrict when a drone may be flown and where it may be flown from, and that they are unlikely to appear in a flight planning app. They are found by asking the council and reading the signs, as part of the desk research on every job. A road or pavement is a poorer answer still, because the separation from uninvolved people that a professional flight has to hold cannot be established on a busy footway.
How it is settled
None of this is left to the flight day. Planning starts at the first enquiry with a desk study of the location: the airspace, any restriction zone, the byelaws, the likely density of people, and who owns and controls the ground the flight would launch from. Permissions are determined then, recorded in the job, and confirmed on the location survey. For urban and congested work the police are also notified through the non-emergency number, and the reference kept with the job.
What that means for a client is simple. The question of where to launch from is looked at before a quotation is issued and settled before the day, and where a site offers nowhere lawful to fly from, that is said early rather than discovered on the morning with a crew standing at the gate.
Governing Standards and Scope
- Flight operations are conducted under a Civil Aviation Authority Operational Authorisation, with a General VLOS Certificate (GVC) and an A2 Certificate of Competency, and are fully insured for commercial operation.
- Permission for take-off and landing is obtained from the landowner or leaseholder before every flight, determined at desk planning, confirmed on the location survey and recorded in the job. Where the client is not the landowner, a written flight location permission is obtained.
- Airspace restrictions, including airport flight restriction zones, are assessed for every job from current aeronautical information, and any permission required is obtained and recorded before flight.
- Local byelaws and site rules are checked as part of desk research. They sit outside airspace law but govern where a flight may be launched from.
- This article describes how Drone Media Imaging plans its own operations. It is not legal advice on land access or trespass, and the arrangements for any specific site are confirmed at the time of the job.
Tell Us About the Site, Not Just the Building
When you enquire, the useful things to mention are whether you own the site or lease it, who controls access on the day, and whether the building sits tight to a road or against a neighbour. Those three answers tell us where the flight can be launched from, and let us have the permissions in place before anyone arrives.
Sussex, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey are home ground, with travel throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe where a job warrants it. If a site offers nowhere lawful to fly from, we will tell you before you spend anything.
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