Permits

Filming with a drone in Table Mountain National Park

Table Mountain National Park is closed to recreational drones. Productions can fly, under a SANParks filming permit, and only where the flying is carried out by an operator that already holds a current commercial permit from the park.

That distinction is the whole answer. The question is not whether drones are allowed in TMNP, it is whether your aerial unit is on the park's list. If it is not, there is no application to lodge.

We fly the park under the operator certificate of Epic Air, which SANParks lists among the RPAS operators licensed to operate in Table Mountain National Park. See the park's own filming, photography and events page.

Why the park controls the airspace

Two separate laws overlap here, and productions usually only know about one of them.

The aviation layer is Civil Aviation Regulations Part 101, which governs the aircraft, the pilot and the flight. The conservation layer is the National Environmental Management: Protected Areas Act 57 of 2003. SANParks reads that Act as making it illegal to fly below 2500 feet above the highest peak of any national park or protected area without the permission of the managing authority, as set out in its published position on drones in protected areas.

Read those together and the effect is simple. A drone legal under Part 101 at 300 ft is still unlawful over TMNP without the park's written permission, because the ceiling that matters here is 2500 feet above the highest peak, not 400 ft above the surface. The same rule is why a helicopter needs park permission to descend over the mountain.

The process, step by step

1. Location application first. The production lodges the filming and photography application with the TMNP permit office, naming every location and listing the drone in that original application.
2. Drone annexure second. The park has a separate form, the application for filming with an RPAS or drone in a national park. The park requires the commercial permit holder to complete and submit it, not the production. That is our job, and we need the location reference to attach it to.
3. Aviation pack. We supply the pilot licence, the operator certificate and operations manual approval, RPAS public liability insurance, aircraft registrations, and the flight plan for each site.
4. Evaluation. The park assesses the file. If anything is missing it comes back to you and the published timeframes stop running until the gap is filled.
5. Invoice. If the application is in order and approved, the park issues an invoice. Note the park bills per location reserved, not per day.
6. Payment. The permit is only issued once proof of payment has been received. EFT is preferred, and the park's cut off for proof of payment is 15:00 daily.
7. Issue. The permit comes back with conditions attached. Those conditions travel with the crew and are enforced on the ground.

The sequence is worth restating because productions routinely plan against the wrong milestone. It is evaluate, then invoice, then issue. Approval is not a permit. Payment is what turns approval into a permit, and until proof of payment lands nothing has been issued.

Lead times against a shoot date

The park publishes 5 working days for stills and 6 working days for commercials, excluding weekends, from a complete application. Those are minimums for the park's own processing, and they assume the invoice is paid the same day it is issued. The park says so explicitly.

Counting backwards from a shoot date, a realistic drone sequence looks like this.

Ten working days out is the number we plan to, not six. The gap absorbs an incomplete application, an invoice that sits over a weekend, and the airspace side running on its own clock. Fees are set out in the park's tariff document and vary by location and activity.

Aerodrome proximity, which nobody costs in

Part 101 prohibits operating within a 10 km radius of an aerodrome reference point unless otherwise authorised. Around the Cape Peninsula that radius reaches further into the park than most producers expect, and the authorisation is a separate process running in parallel with the SANParks file.

Where a site falls inside that radius, or inside controlled airspace, we coordinate the flight plan and any notice to airmen through our operator certificate holder before the shoot. We verify every site against the current airspace data by point in polygon check rather than by eye. A location that looks clear on a map is not a clearance.

Conditions that show up on the day

• An environmental control officer may be required, at a cost over and above the permit fee, and is engaged by the production from the park's approved list.
• Baboon monitors are required at some locations, again as a separate cost.
• Permits are location specific. Moving the unit to a viewpoint 400 m away is a different permit, not a variation.
• You cannot amend the application once the invoice has been issued, and no refunds or credits are authorised at that point.
• Certain precincts are simply not available for drone work, including Boulders, Scarborough, Sandy Bay and Llandudno, and Perdekloof. A permit elsewhere in the park does not reach them.
• The park reserves the right to refuse any activity it considers unsuitable, and it exercises that right.

What we need from you to start

• Every intended flight site as a coordinate or what3words pin, not a place name.
• The TMNP application reference once the production has lodged it.
• Shoot dates with the actual flying window inside the day.
• The shot, in enough detail that we can build a flight plan and a risk assessment against it.