The only pilots who would be allowed to fly an R.P.A. over any event here in Australia are RePL flying for a company which holds a ReOC. C.A.S.A. models the R.P.A. regime on the manned aviation closely for standardisation.
True in the U.S. The incomming scheme here has even recreational and Excluded class Recreational pilots required to re examine every 3 years, RePL are subject to demonstration of competency at any time of C.A.S.A.'s chosing
While not required for recreational and excluded pilots here, RePLs with a ReOC granted company are required to have a nominated maintenance officer and all maintenance schedules for all aircraft must be specified in the company's procedures and operations manuals which must be submitted to, inspected and approved by C.A.S.A. and maintenance logs eqivilent to manned avaition must be kept by that officer and submitted.
Possibly true in the U.S. Not so here. You can obtain 100% pass mark in the theory but if you do not meet the required practical flight standards during your practical you will not be issued an RePL.
Predominately true. To overfly people here is a deviation from the "Standard operating Conditions", only a RePL and ReOC certified Chief Pilot can grant those dispensations and you are required to provide Full engine and Battery redundancy to even be allowed to fly within 15m of people. As my company's chief pilot it is my task to do final Job Safety Assessments and put in place any threat and error management steps and risk mitigation before allowing an exemption, there is an actual formalised risk assessment and rating scheme in place I must follow.
So, I know what you're about to say, "who cares what the Australian rules are they are not the same here?" and that's true but I wanted to mention the above before I say the following.
Even though I am an RePL and have a ReOC company and can get the necessary exemptions required to do most anything for wedding parties or other events I simply do not offer these services from my company. I will not issue an authorisation to an RePL working for me for overflight of people regardless of whether the risk can be brought down to an "officially accepted level" (4 or less out of 10) or not. I have no interest in flying anything that I am not seated in with a fixed wing over populous area's.
I'm with BigAL07, as technology currently stands there are just not enough redundancies and fail safes with Multi Rotor R.P.A.'s for regular overflight of crowds (In my opinion, you can disagree of course). Yes, a falling or out of control R.P.A. is unlikely to kill someone but more cases than we would like to admit of blinding and facial disfigurement have already taken place.
drone face injury - Google Search
If I'm flying a 172 and the engine quits I at least get to choose where I am putting it down and I have a reasonable time frame to think it through from x thousand feet. Even with a OctoCopter R.P.A. with 8 batteries if an engine quits I have little time to react and I need to rely too heavily on technology over my own input to put it down safely to be comfortable with it.
Regards
Ari