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New Canada Wide Drone Organization - UUAG

Joined
Apr 3, 2017
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Hi everyone. I'm a member from over at MavicPilots.com. And based on the recent updates from Transport Canada on the new Drone Laws in Canada, a lot of us have been frustrated. I'm launching a new non-profit community group in Canada to help address this. If you're interested in keeping our hobby accessible, safe, and fun, please read on!

One thing that is made clear, is that if we don't contest these laws, and find ways to demonstrate to the community at large, and lawmakers that we are a safe and responsible community of pilots. Then the laws will continue to become more and more restrictive.

I've decided someone needs to lead the charge. And get the ball rolling. But we need the community to give us input, feedback, and register interest in membership. By doing this we gain concrete numbers, and statistics, which can be used as ammunition to gain partnerships in industry, vendors, and insurance underwriters, and to approach Transport Canada to open a dialog about improving the current situation.

It's clear this is a possibility, as MAAC clearly had a position at the table. Their organization has thousands of members in Canada, and was able to get an exemption made for their dues paying members. But their organization is focused on the more general RC Aircraft hobby, which hasn't changed a lot in decades. Their interests don't alingn with those of us using new, exciting developments in drone technology for art, science, photography, videography, real estate, surveying, exploring, outdoor activities, or just recording family events.

A new organization that offers many benefits to it's members, the primary of which is a voice to the community, and regulators, but also including Liability Insurance coverage, deals with vendors, regular community events, etc, is called for.

I've launched UUAG, the United Un-manned Aviators Guild in Canada, to focus on filling this void. (I like to pronounce it "Wag"). It's a non-profit, and we want to get it rolling ASAP with the communities help!

I've already spoken with the owners of the DronePilots network of forums, and they support me cross-posting this across all their sites. I'm also in talks with them on how we can cooperate and not fragment the community.

I'm already talking to many Canadian Drone based Youtube Channels. Other community groups, NODE, and other avenues. To unite everyone in Canada who enjoys this hobby and start building something great for our emerging community. We don't want to compete with other groups, we want to collaborate and work with them.

I also have an FPV Racer, and plan to reach out to FPV Canada, and other Racing leagues in Canada to setup partnerships and collaboration with them as well.

I want this organization to represent ALL Drone users in Canada, regardless of their intended use, or brand of preference. Also we want to support Commercial users as well, not ONLY recreational users. As those of you using your drones for business are a new growing industry in Canada, that we want to foster and support!

Please hit our website at www.uuag.ca
And register your interest in membership. There is a survey, designed to gather info about what the members want to get, and how we should structure the organization. There is no commitment, just gathering info so we can effectively plan.

And don't hesitate to contact me here on the forum, or via the website if you have any questions, suggestions, or comments!

Lastly, if you're interested in helping somehow, I'd love to hear from you. I have no intentions of this being a one-man-show. I'm just getting the ball rolling, but it will take the help of the community for this to succeed.
Anyone willing to help in any way is greatly appreciated. We are also specifically seeking people for the following purposes:
  • We need licensed Flight Instructors (for manned flight). We need to develop flight safety material, and need your help!
  • We need licensed manned pilots, to help as advocates with the conventional aviation community
  • We need experienced Lobbyists, to help with dealing with regulators, etc
  • We need those with formal law experience, to help with interpreting laws, documents, etc, and covering our butts ;)
  • We need people to help with planning local groups, meetups, and events
  • We need people willing to volunteer their time just to help answer questions, and general administrative tasks
  • I'd love to get some representatives of Law Enforcement on-board to help in communicating with that wing of the government

Thanks for your time in reading this, I'll look forward to hearing from all of you, and your comments!

- Paul
 
Not sure if it really will do any good as Canada always follows suit with the US, and then takes it to the extreme. It may be a good idea in theory, but I see no real issues with Transport Canada rule except for the one about personal information being put on the drone. I have sent a letter to Transport Canada about it as well as filed a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. I would you suggest that you have everyone you contact do the same as well to overwhelm them with this problem.
 
Not sure if it really will do any good as Canada always follows suit with the US, and then takes it to the extreme. It may be a good idea in theory, but I see no real issues with Transport Canada rule except for the one about personal information being put on the drone. I have sent a letter to Transport Canada about it as well as filed a complaint with the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. I would you suggest that you have everyone you contact do the same as well to overwhelm them with this problem.

MAAC has demonstrated that they have a seat at the table. There are specific exclusions for MAAC members/fields in the interim order. There is a working group which has industry/community representation. Etc. I feel that our group has the potential to get heard here, and have an impact.

I don't expect to have all the rules reversed. But minor changes can go a long way.

I agree to a point, that the current rules aren't actually that bad. IF you interpret them with a common-sense spirit. The main problem is in their wording.

The way they are currently written, for example:
  • You can't fly with your friends/family watching, unless they are always 75m away from the drone
  • You can't fly near your own vehicle you drive to the site, as there is no exemption from your own vehicle from the 75m rule
  • You can't fly near your own buildings (again 75m rule is absolute)
  • Used to be as a hobbyist you could call ATC for permission to fly within the edge of aerodrome, now you can't
  • Can't fly near ANY animal... including bees, squirrels, mosquitos, birds, etc... Meaning basically every square inch of canada
  • As you pointed out the privacy concerns of the contact info thing. Just use a registration number, serves the same purpose without the privacy issue.
  • Etc...
I don't disagree at all in the current rules. **** the 75m rule actually is an improvement (used to be 150m in Canada from people, buildings, crowds, and vehicles). But the way it's written is so all-encompassing that it's impossible to comply.

By adding to the mix the hard fine for enforcement, and a massive public facing campaign using words like "Call 911 if you see illegal drone use", can spell trouble for people over-literally interpreting the laws. It needs to be fixed.

We simply need tweaks to wording to make it more workable. And I think those types of tweaks are totally achievable. Combined with a mechanism to spread more public awareness of the facts, and try to overpower some of the FUD out there.

I also think we should be writing our MP, etc. And using those channels to alert the government to our concerns. But at the same time, an organized unified approach can wield much more influence, as it is more cohesive, easy to deliver one message, and less of a burden, while still carrying the same political implications. It just takes a bit more work, and time to get it rolling.

So ultimately that's why I felt the need for someone to kick off something, and ultimately I decided to launch UUAG. :)
 
What kind of a yearly fee are we looking at for UUAG?
Not actually sure yet.

We are a non-profit, so won't be intending to "make money" on it. But we do need to keep things sustainable.

So as a result the fees will need to be a function of:
- Ultimate insurance premiums we can get from an underwriter/broker
- Any other benefits that the community collectively decides it wants (based on the surveys) and the costs to pull that off
- A small amount of buffer to cover overhead.

So for example, if we can negotiate premiums down to $50/year, and the costs of the other benefits add up to $20/year per person. We could probably do $75/year. But if insurance premiums are $100/year and costs are $50/year per person, then $150 - $175 is more likely where we'll land. It will depend heavily on that.

And of course costs of insurance, and costs of other benefits will depend heavily on member count.

Many of the benefits we're talking about don't really "cost" anything, other than a bit of volunteer time. Others have costs associated (but flat costs, for the whole organization, so it would divide by members) etc... Some things take administrative time to manage, some of that can be volunteer, but at a certain scale we might actually need to hire fulltime administrative/secretarial staff for example, though that would be at fairly large scale (MAAC has a small handfull of "employees" most is volunteer time).

So until I've gathered more details it's really hard to answer that question. The first (and likely biggest) expense will be insurance. And I'll be working on nailing that down ASAP.

Does that help answer your question?
 

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