I have been flying drones for over 10 years now, and today for the very first time I came across the dreaded zone lock issue.
I am actually on Christmas Island, 350km south of Indonesia and in the Indian Ocean 2600Km NW from Perth. Its quite tiny as islands go, with only a few roads, a single settlement with a population of around 1700 people, lots of mountainous jungle, millions of seabirds and lots and lots of phosphate – its reason for being.
There is obviously an airport, and the drone limiting flight zones cover a fair portion as you can see in the image.
On the side of the island – the left – where there is no zoning, there are also no roads to speak of. And my location on the NE edge of the settlement is in the no-go red zone. To the right in the blue zone where I went yesterday, DJI let me fly the Flip I have with me for 90 seconds before an automatic return to home.
I decided to bite the bullet and apply for a zone unlock.
It actually turned out easier than I thought with the online form wanting such details as the controller serial number, the location I wanted to fly, and why, and other basic personal information. After filling out the online form (and a tip here, get all the info before you start as it wants all fields filled out), within a few seconds I received an SMS on the temporary SIM I am using, as only Telstra is available on Christmas Island. I finalised the form with that code and hey presto, zone unlocked for a year.
Not the red zone obviously but with Airbus 320s rocketing over, that wouldn’t be a good idea. And the blue zone has all the interesting spots anyway.
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