G20 brisbane Gentlemen. I’ll put on my professional pilot (amateur FPVer) hat for a few moments and give a bit of advice and warning about FPVing over the next week or so in Brisbane. I’ve duplicated this post on a few different forums, apologies to anyone who’s endured it more than once…



In short, G20 is in town, and there are extremely heavy restrictions in place for ALL aircraft in and around Brisbane. This amounts to virtually a complete ban on private flying in the Brisbane region, very heavy restrictions on airline and commercial operations, and a close to 24/7 presence of military and Police flying operations, particularly over this coming weekend. Commercial UAV operations have been grounded as well, aside from the Queensland Police UAVs. Ground and air surveillance of very wide areas around Brisbane Airport, Amberley RAAF base, and particularly the CBD and surrounding suburbs, is underway from now until next Tuesday 18th November.



I’ve included some pics from the AIP SUP, along with the original document for those who care to interpret it over a lazy few hours.



Restricted areas, shown as R9000 A/B/C/D cover a massive region. To remind everyone, a restricted area requires a flight plan to be submitted, and an air traffic clearance to fly in. No clearance will be given for anything other than airlines, very limited commercial, medical and military flights. Full stop.



I might suggest, in the strongest possible terms, to not do any FPV in and around Brisbane until it’s all over. Flying your mini below treetop height might be OK if you’re well out of the CBD, but I’d be certain that any fixed-wing flights will be tracked down fairly quickly and dealt with harshly. There are $10000+ fines for any private (fullscale) pilots violating restricted areas; expect an FPV flight to be met with the same. I’ve included a map showing the restricted areas. You’ll note that the innermost restricted area (R900A/B) covers virtually the whole of the CBD and most inner suburbs, and around Southbank and surrounding suburbs. This restricted area is from the surface to 2000ft. Dozens of streets are blocked off, literally hundereds of police, both Federal and State, are watching everything. I’ll suggest strongly that even flying a NanoQX™ with a camera on it will attract attention.



Military and Police helicopters are already conducting random patrols at low levels below 500ft. Military jets are expected to be airborne at all times providing top cover when Air Force One is in town, and are authorized to intercept any and all aircraft, including jet airliners. At least one model club (TMAC) near the airport has been closed entirely for the duration, on the basis that model flying below 400ft as normal, is deemed illegal in these zones. Two model gliding clubs I know of are also closed, on the basis that although they are well out of the CBD, they fly much higher than normal models. Outer suburbs, including as far out as Wivenhoe Dam and as far north as Beerwah and Bribie are covered by R9000 C & D. They are active 24/7, and need full air traffic clearance for ANYTHING, anything at all, to fly.



Guys, make your own decisions, I’m just providing information. I’ll say for my own part that in 15 years of aviation, I’ve never seen anything like this for airspace restrictions. We in the airlines have been preparing for this for some time, and even then we are given no notice at all when VIP flights and associated military jets will close all airspace entirely, and we get sent to hold 200km+ away from the airport. We just carry the holding fuel and hope we don’t get stuck. Very serious stuff. I’m not wanting to sound like a killjoy, I’m just passing on information, feel free to tell anyone else you know who doesn’t care to frequent these forums (Pfft, I know – crazy, huh!!?).



For anyone who might want to chance their arm and make a political statement about their liberties as FPVers and/or freedom of technological expression – well - get your lawyers to let the rest of us know how it worked out for you.



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