CARs Night Flight Requirements

Nice shot.

I took a look at Barrie using the National Research Council's drone site selection tool. It looks like you'd be legal to fly pretty well anywhere over the water except Orillia.

Heliports aren't 5.6 km radius, they're 1.9 km so the hospital's radius doesn't reach the water.

All the other airfields (except Borden) aren't certified so you have to 'exercise caution' but aren't banned. The zones around them are also showing as smaller ovals rather than 5.6 km circles, which I think show runway alignments and thus give you an idea of the axis planes will be landing/taking off. (Edenvale seems to have three runways, for example, while Springwater/Barrie Airpark has one.)

No idea how busy they are, which will of course affect how safe it is to fly near them, but it looks like the entire shoreline of Shanty Bay is OK for flights.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for your reply. I am aware of the 1.9km radius for the heliport. What I am confused by is that the National Research Council shows the whole waterfront as launch points …
Screen Shot 2019-06-12 at 9.00.15 PM.jpg


… whereas AirMap and AirData show that only portions of the waterfront have launch points outside the airport radius, so it is more limited. I have been using AirData and AirMap as my guide. Below is AirMap
Screen Shot 2019-06-12 at 9.02.51 PM.jpg


The black circle is the seaplane radius. Shanty Bay is a small village and is too far from the Barrie City Waterfront to get any useable photo of the city lights reflecting on the water. Minet's point on the south side is a possible launch point but, it is a busy beach area and the parking lot is within metres of the shore so often people go there to sit and watch the sunset of have a coffee break.

Chris
 
Well so far, I have done two night flights on different days and only one flight per night as the bugs have been bad even with fly dope. They love attacking my head light. Here is a shot from last night. There was a bit of wind and some gusts resulting in some blurry photos. Launched from the North Shore of the Bay (Johnson's Beach). Would like to get closer to the city lights and am currently scouting locations to fly from. It's getting harder to find spots to fly because the nice weather brings lots of people out to the waterfront even at night. Some of the places closer to the downtown area would be great spots to take pictures from but they are within the 5.6 km radius of local airports/heliports so can't fly there.

View attachment 111995
2.0 sec @ f/2.8, ISO 200, P3S camera, RAW. Minor editing in Lightroom.

Turning off the front lights during the shot definitely helps. I was surprised how easy it was to see the AC at night, but must rely on the radar/map for orientation as it is much harder to tell at night. Next time out, I will try some exposure stacking to see if I can get a sharper photo with less noise.

So far, I am pleased with the results considering the P3S camera is not the best for low light photography.

Chris
Nice picture Chris. Was that from the boat launch. From my Geospatial, downtown is a caution zone not a no fly zone like the Edenville, Lake Simcoe Airport authorization zones.
 

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Nice picture Chris. Was that from the boat launch. From my Geospatial, downtown is a caution zone not a no fly zone like the Edenville, Lake Simcoe Airport authorization zones.
Thanks.
I launched from Johnson’s Beach. I would like to launch from near the Southlake centre as it would be much closer to the city lights but it is within the 5.6km radius of the airport.

Chris
 
The Southshore Centre should be ok and not in NFZ as is Johnson's Beach. View attachment 111999

Thanks for the reply. As far as I understand the regs, it’s not whether you are in a NFZ but within the 5.6km from the airport. The SouthShore centre is within that distance.

IMG_1560437271.162200.jpg




Chris
 
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Thanks for the reply. As far as I understand the regs, it’s not whether you are in a NFZ but within the 5.6km from the airport. The SouthShore centre is within that distance.

View attachment 112000



Chris
It can be confusing but believe not all airports have a 5.6 km restriction. Depends on whether a major airport like Lake Simcoe, Edenville or Pearson compared to smaller one, grass strips, or even Skydive Toronto. There are NFZ and warning zones. If your Phantom has the latest up date, try it and see if you get Geofenced. I have flown downtown Barrie and south shore with no Geofencing. I also was going to take a low (100 ft) picture of my friend house on the 3rd of Oro near the bay and it would not even let me
Innisfil Geospatia caution zonesl.PNG
take off due to the Lake Simcoe airport. The yellow in this map are NFZ, the green Warning, caution zones.
 
What Phantom do you fly Chris?

I have a P3S and a Spark. The shot above is from the P3S. Would love to get a Mavic 2 Pro but just can’t fathom spending over $2000CAN just for the drone. Maybe when the prices come down a bit.

Chris
 
No tinkering. Had the top case off when it hit a tree in an AutoPilot Follow Mission (my fault) and the IMU got stuck. Fixed it by taping it. Has worked perfectly ever since.

Chris
 
No tinkering. Had the top case off when it hit a tree in an AutoPilot Follow Mission (my fault) and the IMU got stuck. Fixed it by taping it. Has worked perfectly ever since.

Chris
I was wondering as I have a lot of P3 parts, new GPS etc that need a home.
 
Or pass it around to friend with a P3, No Charge, just needs a home.

Can’t take you up on the offer right now as I don’t have extra space.

Chris
 
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Hi Robert,
Thanks for your reply. I am aware of the 1.9km radius for the heliport. What I am confused by is that the National Research Council shows the whole waterfront as launch points …
View attachment 111996

… whereas AirMap and AirData show that only portions of the waterfront have launch points outside the airport radius, so it is more limited. I have been using AirData and AirMap as my guide. Below is AirMap
View attachment 111997

The black circle is the seaplane radius. Shanty Bay is a small village and is too far from the Barrie City Waterfront to get any useable photo of the city lights reflecting on the water. Minet's point on the south side is a possible launch point but, it is a busy beach area and the parking lot is within metres of the shore so often people go there to sit and watch the sunset of have a coffee break.

Chris

I think what's happening is that AirMap is drawing a 5.6 km radius around every airport, whether or not it's certified, while the NRC is only drawing it around certified airports (which matches current regulations). As I understand it (and I'm not a lawyer) we are only prohibited from flying within 5.6 km of a certified airport. I have Canada Drone Pilot on my iPad for logging flights, and it does what AirMap does — draws a 5.6 km circle around every airport ‚ but distinguishes between prohibited (certified) airports and registered airports (where one can fly but with caution).

Does AirMap draw Borden in red?

(And I was assuming "Shanty Bay" was the name of the bay that Barrie is built on — I didn't know it referred to a small town. Sorry for misreading the map. I meant Kempenfelt Bay — assuming I read the map correctly this time!)
 
Here’s how AirMap shows Borden.
E1C592F8-0FD2-4C3E-B3A3-4535C16979AE.png


I also use UAV Forecast map feature to check places I fly.

As far as logging my flights - I have been using AirData. Barrie is on Kempenfelt Bay as you have noted.

Chris
 
Here’s how AirMap shows Borden.
View attachment 112052

I also use UAV Forecast map feature to check places I fly.

As far as logging my flights - I have been using AirData. Barrie is on Kempenfelt Bay as you have noted.

Chris

Looks similar to Canada Drone Pilot's map. Assuming that's the case, red would be certified airports, orange registered ones. As I understand it, the 5.6 km prohibition applies only to certified airports; we can fly closer to registered ones if we exercise due caution.
 
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