Drones on Tracks

It's only landing that DOC can restrict (without more work). Has anyone seen detail of what has actually been restricted? How far from the walks would a person need to be to legally launch and land it?

ha, try the kepler, one of the scenic helicopter routes buzzes the track at low level, really low level., i've been about 20 metres from a helicopter flying by horizontal from where i stood on the top, three times in a couple of hours

Here's what I've posted just now in Wayno's tramping facebook group: Looking at this more closely, under the National Parks Act, aircraft in National Parks are controlled with bylaws, which are allowed to be made to control the hovering or landing over any part of a National Park. Fiordland National Park (as an example) already has bylaw 10 for controlling Aircraft, which effectively makes it illegal to land or take off from any part of the park that's not an aerodrome (probably including helipads but I can't be bothered tracing the definition), and also illegal to hover an aircraft over any part of the park,. http://www.legislation.govt.nz/regulation/public/1981/0065/latest/whole.html I think that this means (a) If DOC wanted to change any regulations then it'd be necessary to change the bylaws -- the Minister, at least, probably has to sign off on this. But (b) It's already illegal to land and take off in the park.... unless you can find a place where it's legal for commercial helicopters to land and take off. Also (c) it might be illegal to fly a drone with certain techniques in Fiordland regardless, but that might also come down to the interpretation of "hover". Translation: I don't think this is DOC banning drones so much as "reminding" people that they're probably not allowed to take them anyway, and tipping off that it might be enforced in future, probably if someone's asked to switch it off but they don't.

Golly if there was a helicopter buzzing about over the Kepler track as I walked it I'd be unhappy about that. Spoils the experience.

Waynowski: If you can, record the registration and report it to the CAA. There is an online form on their website. They shouldn't be any lower than 500 feet above the ground.

Last year (2015) we got the fright of our lives cresting a peak by a glider that was well below the 500ft rule. Shot straight over us so low we all ducked. Later I was contacted by the pilot (via my public photo set) most likely to ascertain the 'mood' of the group. But more likely because the local glider club president told him to!