so ive been planning a trip to a few countries in europe later this year and was trying to figure out what category my drone falls under with the new EASA rules and honestly its a mess. like every country still seems to have slightly different rules on top of the EU baseline which kind of defeats the whole point of having unified regulations in the first place right? france seems especially strict about certain zones and i read something about italy requiring additional local permits in some areas but i couldnt tell if that article was outdated or not.

i fly a mavic 3 so its in the C1 category i think but i also dont have the EU declaration of conformity because i bought it in the US. not sure if that matters or if theres a workaround. has anyone actually dealt with this recently, like in the last year or so. would love to hear from someone who actually went through the process rather than just reading the official docs which are honestly kind of confusing to parse through

flew in Portugal and Spain last spring and went through all of this. the EASA open category stuff is mostly fine once you get your head around it but the C-class labeling is where it gets messy for drones bought outside the EU. what i ended up doing was just registering in one country (did it through the DGAC in France actually even though i started my trip in Spain, long story) and then used that registration across the countries i visited. some people say you need to register in each country separately but i found conflicting info on that and ultimately it worked out fine for me without doing that. definitely check the drone scene app before flying anywhere, it has the zone info baked in and saves a ton of headache

this is kind of off topic but the whole C-class thing is making me think twice about upgrading my current drone to something newer. like if i buy something now that doesnt have the EU conformity marking im basically locked out of flying in A1 or A2 over there which is annoying. feels like the regulations moved faster than the actual product lineup caught up, at least for stuff sold outside europe. anyway good luck with the trip, italy was worth it even with the permit headaches lol