When the clocks go back: flying in the dark and the cold

The clocks in the UK go back at 2am on Sunday 25 October. From then until spring the working day is short. In London the sun sets before 4pm for most of December, and further north it sets earlier still.

For drone work that changes two things. More jobs get flown at dusk or after dark, sometimes because the client wants that look, a house with its lights on or a lit up building, and sometimes because that is when there was time. And more flights happen in cold air, which is hard on batteries.

The green light, after dark

Since 1 January 2026, a drone flown at night in the UK's Open Category must have a green flashing light, switched on for the whole flight. That is the Civil Aviation Authority's rule, and it applies to every drone flown at night in that category.

Whether your drone already has one depends on its class mark. Drones marked UK1, UK2, UK3, UK5 or UK6 are built with one. Drones marked UK0 or UK4, EU C0 or C4 drones, and older drones with no class mark at all do not have to be built with one, so the CAA says they may need one fitted before they fly at night.

A few practical points follow.

• The light has to stay on. The CAA puts that on the person flying: the light must be active at all times during a night flight. Some drones switch their lights off while recording, to keep them out of the shot, so check your app's settings before you rely on a built in light.
• A fitted light adds weight. If your drone sits just under a weight limit, check it still sits under it with the light attached.
• Nothing else relaxes. You still have to keep the drone in sight, and that is harder in the dark. The CAA's advice is to keep night flights simple and close.

The easiest habit is to switch the light on for any flight that could run past sunset, rather than working out the exact moment it becomes night.

This is a UK rule. If you fly elsewhere, check the rules where you are. Our drone laws pages are a place to start.

What cold does to a battery

Drone batteries are lithium cells, and they give less in the cold. The flight is shorter, and the voltage sags when you ask the battery for a lot of power at once, which is when a drone can decide it has less charge than you thought.

DJI's own winter guidance for its drones is a sensible starting point:

• when it is below 5°C, warm the battery indoors first, to above 20°C;
• fly only fully charged batteries;
• after takeoff, hover for about a minute so the battery warms up;
• move the sticks gently, to avoid sudden drops in voltage.

The same guidance gives the battery an operating range of -10°C to 40°C and, a few lines later, says not to fly below 0°C. Different drones have different limits, so the figure to trust is the one in your own drone's manual.

In practice that means keeping batteries in a warm bag or an inside pocket until you need them, not leaving spares in the car overnight, and planning shorter flights with more margin for the landing than you would leave in summer.

Planning around the light

Short days change how a job is planned more than how it is flown.

• Check sunset for the place, on the day. Not for where you live.
• Look at the site in daylight first. Wires, branches and aerials that are obvious at 2pm are hard to see at 5pm.
• Fly the daylight parts first. If the job needs both, make the dusk shots the last flight of the visit rather than the first.
• Allow for the cold in the schedule. Warming batteries and flying shorter flights both take time.

Where the work is

Dark evenings are not only a constraint. Estate agents like a house photographed at dusk with its windows lit. Venues, shopfronts and Christmas lights look their best after dark, and so do events that run into the evening.

A dusk shoot also makes a good fixed price job: one property, one short flight at the right time, a set number of photos. On Terasor you can write it once as an offer and take payment from a link or QR code whenever someone asks. The article on My Offers explains how.