We were lucky enough to have a holiday in Barbados this year (2023) and as a Commercial Drone Operator I looked into getting a licence to fly my drone from the Barbadian authority … .What could go wrong! 

Well,  actually nothing major,  but it was such an interesting experience I thought I should share it on my website and hope it would help others if they wanted to do the same thing. 

First off, there seems to be a lot of bureaucracy on the Island with several departments contradicting each other in particular Air Traffic Control. So give yourself at least 2 months prior to your holiday to gain the right documentation,  as it’s a slow one!  The cost to gain a licence was $30 BD or around £10 in 2023, so it’s not too expensive. You will also need some Public Liability (PL) cover of at least USD250,000.00, which depending on your stay should be around £50, I’ve put some links below of two providers I would recommend. 

The kicker though,  is you will also need some form of competency certificate, which means you have to do a very simple online course to gain what they call an A2 C of C, which costs around £100. I’ve put a link below to UAVHub who are the people I used, who were great. For any Europeans you can do the same A2 C of C in your home country for around the same cost. For US citizens you will need a FAA Part 107 certificate which costs $175,  and a complete a course which is around $145. 

I have both the A2 C of C for flying in Europe and the GVC (General Visual Line of Sight Certificate) for the UK. It’s a Brexit thing…don’t get me started!!!

You may come across some sites which claim the Barbados Government has suspended all drone flights, these are out of date, so you can ignore them. 

First you need permission from the Prime Minister’s office, at the time I dealt with a lovely lady by the name of Wendy Eversley who turned out to be worth her weight in gold. Here’s a link to the site and a copy of my Request to Import. 

https://barbados.seamlessdocs.com/sc/uasapplication

The form is actually straight forward, there are some bits which might throw some people off, so I’ve put the correct answers below.

Purpose of Operation

I ticked ‘Aerial Photography and Filming’

I also filled in the comment section, stating I was on holiday and wanted to capture some of their beautiful island as a memory of our time there.

Proposed duration – duration of your stay

The tricky one was ‘Locations of the proposed flight’

Just put a few places you think you’ll want to fly. I made the mistake of saying ‘Anywhere within the rules and regs of the island of Barbados’ This bit me in the a** later down the line, so eventually I simply put 3 or 4 location/town names. You’ll see why later!

For ‘Geographical Boundaries of Intended Ops’ – With this I simply went to Google Maps, right clicked over a town I had on my list above. A box comes up with Lon/Lat number at the top, simply cut and paste that in the box. See photo

Re the ‘Pilot and Person responsible for the UAS operation certificate number’, I put my A2 C of C number in both boxes.

The UAS details box is pretty straight forward, again you may need to go to your drone manufacturers website to get the details.

At this point you will also need to attach pdf’s of your Worldwide PL and your A2 C of C certificate.

Click submit and you then wait for them to get back to you. It took around 2 weeks to get it processed. All being well, you get issued with a pdf ‘Request to Import/Operate/ Export Unmanned Aircraft’ licence (above) which I then had to send to Vernon Chandler who is the main guy in charge of Drone stuff on the island.

Vernon.Chandler@barbados.gov.bb

You will also need to fill in form TU33 and send that to Vernon on the same email. I’ve attached a copy of mine below.

Again pretty straight forward, the bits about frequency and transmitting threw me for a few seconds but it’s pretty obvious all they want is the standard 2.4/5.8 Ghz frequency and the number of drones and controllers. In my case I only had the one.

I didn’t have a telephone number so I left that bit blank.

Once they get the form back, if memory serves they send you a link to www.ezpay.gov.bb where you will pay your $30 BD.

They then send you a TUL133 licence (see below) and you’re good to go…well almost!

First make sure you print off two copies of the TUL133 and the ‘Request to Import/Operate/ Export Unmanned Aircraft’ from the Prime Minister’s Office. You may need these for customs.

Now in my case as I entered the airport and made a beeline to the customs to make sure I didn’t get the drone confiscated. In hindsight I wouldn’t bother, unless of course they pull you up, in which case pull out the documentation. I felt the Customs people didn’t have a clue what all this paperwork meant. It took half an hour for them to go and print a copy and look as if they were going through the motions.  Hence take two copies of the TUL133, your Public Liability cover and probably worth taking A2 C of C for good measure, one to hand over and one as a spare, just in case!

So for the interesting bit. Part of the criteria of being allowed to fly a drone in Barbados is you have to inform the Air Traffic Control (ATC) in Grantly Adams airport every time you intend to fly. Which unless you’re near the airport, makes no logic at all as they have no way of knowing where you’re flying anyway?? So this is where I started to realise a lot of this hoop jumping was pretty meaningless.

We arrived during the first weekend of the Crop Over festival, which is a bank holiday. So when I phoned the ATC and told them I intended to fly, they said no problem let us know when you’re done. All well and good. The sh1t hit the fan the following day, which wasn’t a holiday, and I came across the intimidating Captain Charles M. Harris, who obviously was off over the weekend. He basically went apesh*t, as he hadn’t been sent any of my paperwork from all the different departments I had dealt with over the last few months.

He point blank refused me to fly until he got the relevant paperwork, confirming who I was etc. I panicked and blasted off an email to Wendy Eversley asking what I should do. She sent him the paperwork and a list of 50 or so locations I intended to fly. At this point I hadn’t a clue where I was going to fly, I simply tried to cover all the bases. This turned out to be a mistake, this was the first email fired off by Captain Harris. He was not happy!

Good afternoon Ms Eversley ,

As previously communicated, a review of Mr. Broom’s application dated May 11th cannot be completed for the following reasons.

1) The applicant is requesting operations outside of daylight hours.

2) The applicant requests operations anywhere within the island of Barbados.

For a further review to take place, specific areas of operation and timings would be required.

Best Regards

I then got this one.

Good day Mr. Broom,

Please be aware that ad-hoc operational permissions and clearances are not issued by this department.

Your application was quite clear with regards to the time, duration and locations of your proposed flights which did not fall within the guidelines for permission to be granted.

For further review, kindly re-submit a corrected application form that accurately reflects your operational plans.

Best Regards

I actually hadn’t requested to film outside of daylight hours and I couldn’t understand why they wanted specific locations. Surely it would be easier for both parties if I rang on the day and told them where I was. But no, the paperwork had to state my intended locations. Eventually Wendy subtly suggested I just put two or three, which I did. This seemed to smooth his feathers and I was good to go.

But here’s the thing. That weekend we went to an event called ‘Pick O De Crop’ at the Botanical Gardens which started around 8 in the evening and went on till past midnight. It was brilliant and there must have been at least 3 or 4 thousand people attending, including the Prime Minister! 

So there we were,  in the middle of this huge crowd in front of the stage and video wall watching all these Calypso bands do their thing when I noticed not one but two drones flying around the edge of the park. They then started to fly directly over us, all the time beaming the pictures live onto the event video wall. The shots looked great, but rode a horse and coach through the legality of flying over crowds,  and in the pitch black night! 

The thing is I can’t believe whoever was flying those drones had special permission,  as you simply can’t fly over crowds without special mitigation in place, such as a safety device like a parachute fitted, which they didn’t.

So for all the paperwork and phone calls you are required to do you have to think,  if they allow flights such as the one at the ‘Pick O De Crop’,  are the rules and regs really being monitored and enforced? Or is it simply a paper exercise,  if things go wrong. A classic case of arse (or ass for our US breathren) covering, and nothing to do with truly monitoring drone flights?  If I wasn’t such a rule bound professional drone pilot,  I would imagine once you’re in the country, other than around the airport, military bases and built up areas, you could fly pretty much anywhere unchallenged. 

For me the most important thing about drone flight safety is common sense. Don’t fly above 120 metres/ 400ft, don’t fly further than 500 metres/ 1640 ft and don’t fly near airports,  people or buildings you don’t have their permission. 

I would recommend getting some polarised ND filters, not straight forward ND filters. I’ve put a link below to a few I use. They get rid of the reflections of foliage and water and really ping the colours, especially with sea. 

I took 3 batteries, a laptop and a 2TB SSD drive to hold the footage as I was shooting 4K ProRes which produce meaty file sizes. As well as the DJI charger I have a Gallium Nitride 100w charger as well. Do a google on them as they are brilliant fast chargers.

I found as it’s a small island there was less airway interference. I very rarely got any RF drop between drone and controller which I tend to get in busy city centre shoots in the UK. You do get a bit of bird interest, especially from some small brown thing which looked like a sparrow but flew like a swift, which I think was a Gray Kingbird. They swooped around the drone, but didn’t go as close as the flying rat I call Seagulls.

The other big issue is the weather, it changes rapidly, and I mean rapidly! One second it’s bright sunshine and the next torrential downpour. These only last around 10 or 15 mins then it’s clear again. My advice is use your eyes, not a weather app!

I would also urge you to hire a car and explore the island, the East coast in particular is rugged and beautiful along with the very North coast at Sandy Hill Point. The disused Harrison’s Lighthouse on the West coast is also particularly interesting and makes for some great shots, watch out for the troop of monkeys lurking in the trees!

Here’s a link to a Youtube video from my channel which has a few clips from Barbados to give you an idea of what you can – Video

So in conclusion if you can’t be bothered going through the same route to fly your own drone I’m available for hire! I can also provide ground based video, so if you have a function or party you would like recording drop me a line.  Obviously I’m based in the UK so you need to provide flights, hotels and a daily rum ration, but I’m very happy to send you a quote .