Service · Compliance & consultancy
CAA authorised drone operator, London
Stem Studios is a CAA authorised operator with GVC qualified pilots. This page explains what that means in practice, what we take care of, and what we’ll need from you to fly legally and safely on your production.
What the qualifications mean
In the UK, commercial drone work of any real ambition happens in the “Specific” category. To fly there, a pilot holds a General Visual Line of Sight Certificate (GVC) and the operator holds an Operational Authorisation issued by the Civil Aviation Authority. That authorisation is what allows us to fly closer to people, buildings and traffic than a hobbyist can, and it comes with an operations manual we work to on every job.
For a production, the practical upshot is simple: if you hire an authorised operator, the flying is legal, insured and planned. If you hire someone without one, the production carries the risk.
Flight restriction zones and congested areas
London is one of the most complicated pieces of airspace in the country. Heathrow, City, Biggin Hill and Northolt each have a flight restriction zone; helicopter routes cross the river; large parts of central London sit inside controlled airspace. None of that stops a shoot — it just means the flight has to be arranged with the right air traffic unit in advance, sometimes with a short lead time and sometimes with a longer one.
We do this planning as standard. Tell us the location and we’ll check it against the current UK AIP data, tell you which zone it falls in, and start the permission process. The interactive fly-zone map on our contact page lets you check an address yourself before you get in touch.
Risk assessments and permissions
Every job gets a site-specific risk assessment covering the airspace, the ground environment, weather, people and the shots themselves. For congested-area and close-proximity work — a street, a rooftop, a crowd, a moving vehicle — we set out the mitigations: cordons, spotters, flight lines that keep the aircraft away from uninvolved people, and a stop protocol with the 1st AD. Where a location needs landowner or local-authority consent, we handle that contact too.
What we need from you
Not much. A location, a date, a rough idea of the shots, and a production contact. If a permission needs lead time we’ll tell you on day one. If the shot as written isn’t achievable under the rules, we’ll tell you that too, along with the version that is. Public liability insurance certificates and our authorisation documents are available on request for production paperwork.
Consultancy
We also advise productions that have their own aircraft or crew and need help with UK airspace, permissions or planning for a particular location — and we occasionally act as the authorised operator for larger shoots that bring in specialist platforms. If that’s the situation, email us and we’ll talk it through.
Track record
We’ve flown authorised operations in central London and across the UK since 2015 for commercial, music, fashion and broadcast productions — for clients including Nike, Netflix, Sky Sports, Burberry and the British Museum. See the work page for the full archive, and our aerial unit and FPV pages for what we fly.