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Responses to Consultations 27/02/2024

In this enlightening interview, Elena Major, Head of Operations at ARPAS-UK, talks with CEO Anne-Lise Scaillierez about the recent drone regulation consultation, focusing on key takeaways like the CAA’s DISCO initiative for digitalisation, the SORA safety methodology, and the integration of CAP-722 for Unmanned Aircraft System operations. This discussion delves into the future of drone technology, emphasising innovation, safety, and the impact of regulatory changes on the industry. Tune in to hear from leading voices in the UK’s drone sector as they navigate these transformative developments.

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CAA DISCO webpage

In previous consultations, we had advocated (among others)  for a  clearly sign-posted website to get information, and the use of modern ways to communicate. Here are a couple of new useful communications pages you should keep an eye on:

22 February 2024

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CAA: BVLOS Within Atypical Air Environments – podcast & consultation

Callum Holland from the Future Safety and Innovation Team discusses the UK CAA’s proposed policy on unlocking beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) drone operations using an Atypical Air Environment.

Hear how this could work in practice and how your views can help shape the final policy.

14 February 2024

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CAA launches AI survey

The aviation industry continues to embrace the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). It already enhances safety and efficiency through predictive maintenance, aiding air traffic management, and refining pilot training with advanced insights and simulations. Understanding what AI will mean for the CAA and how it will affect the way we work and how we regulate is a crucial part of this strategy work.

The CAA have created a survey that focuses on how they regulate AI. Your support in helping create a strategy for the safe and secure use of AI in aviation would be greatly appreciated.

The survey will close Friday 29 March 2024. More information is available on the CAA website

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CAA Call for Volunteers: Electronic Conspicuity User Study

The UK Civil Aviation Authority, in partnership with Baringa and QinetiQ, is hosting virtual workshops in February to discuss Electronic Conspicuity (EC) device use. The sessions will look at how EC is used to detect airborne threats and how decisions are made to avoid airborne collisions.

They are looking for volunteers who are operationally qualified users from the following categories:

  • Specific and Certified Category RPAS Operators
  • Air Traffic Service Controllers
  • Commercial fixed and rotary wing flight crews
  • GA fixed and rotary wing flight crews
  • GA crews not routinely in receipt of air traffic services during flight, e.g., gliding, paragliding, hang gliding, ballooning

Participants cannot not have any connection to an EC manufacturer.

If you are interested in attending a workshop please email your name, contact details and which of the categories you fall under to: [email protected]

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CAA Innovation Funding

During the CAA Finance Service Forum on 8 December 2023 and covering among other matters the “FY2024/25 Charging Consultation Proposals”, the CAA introduced a proposal for “a further new activity price increase of 3.0% across our safety schemes, providing a contribution to the CAA’s role in enabling innovation in the sector, particularly Future Flight which will deliver benefits to existing users through enabling the safe integration of new users, as well as to those new users who will in time be part of the aviation system and at that point make a financial contribution to regulatory costs.”

That proposal would help fund 10% of the costs supported by the CAA, with the government funding the other 90%.

ARPAS-UK supports the proposal, and we believe that innovation will benefit all airspace users.  

10 January 2024

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CAA: Consultation on Vertiports

The CAA are consulting on aerodrome design where vertiports or areas for VTOL aircraft operations differ from that of traditional aerodromes. Comments from this consultation will inform their final design proposals that will form the requirements to supplement:

The CAA defines a vertiport as a type of aerodrome or operating site that is used or intended to be used for the arrival, departure, and surface movement of VTOL aircraft.

The CAA invites stakeholders to give them your views, responses are requested by 15 March 2024.  

19 January 2024

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Westminster eForum on Drones 16 Jan’24: Key Takeaways

Strong and diverse keynotes today at Westminster eForum on drones to the question: “What priorities and next steps for the UK drone industry?” Our key messages were focusing on “Actions in 2024 to grow the commercially possible at scale & at a reasonable cost of compliance in the Here and Now”. Similar to the crawl, walk, run approach mentioned by John McKenna at Sees.ai in his keynote. ARPAS-UK CEO Anne-Lise Scaillierez delivered our organisation’s keynote, reflected on why industries use drones (professional tool to collect data in a safer smarter cheaper way, CO2 reduction journey, and beyond data capture Advanced Air Mobility) and highlighted as 2024 Top 5 priorities:

1. to collectively deliver the upcoming DfT-led Future Flight Action Plan, and where possible accelerate milestones, such as routine BVLOS operations

2. Secure the CAA’s funding and access to skilled resources. CAA teams are very professional and working very hard in a challenging environment. Yet, still months to get approvals for more complex operations.  Innovation much broader than drones: Airspace Modernisation Strategy, alternative propulsion, Net Zero…

3. Focus on low-hanging fruits to expand the scope of the “commercially possible at scale”:

+/ Atypical airspace as a start to long distance BVLOS operations

+/ Standards: standardised, digitised, risk assessments processes for frequent, lower safety risk operations. Product technical standards. BSI standards.

4.Successfully transition to international “SORA”-based regulatory framework: opportunity for regulatory clarity, simplicity, risk proportionality, digitisation

5.Pursue collaboration, education to accelerate the adoption by end-user industries

Jenny Ward at DfT delivered a well-rounded brief that demonstrates the support of DfT to our industry.

Many speakers reflected on a broader perspective as well, beyond 2024 actions, looking at 2030 and embracing Advanced Air Mobility. We agree with them… but like the idea of collectively getting a few simpler things done this year rather than next year!

We’re proud to count as ARPAS-UK members a number of speakers: Paul Luen at COPTRZ, Elliot Parnham at Skyfarer, Dave Pankhurst at BT , Richard Parker at Altitude Angel, and John McKenna at Sees.ai.

Thanks to #wefevents for having us speak and to fellow presenters.

The full transcript and video recording will be made available by the organisers. Please reach out if you would like to discuss the specific input of other speakers. [email protected].

by: Anne-Lise Scaillierez

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DfT Aviation Ambassadors Announced 2024-26

The Aviation Ambassadors Group works with the Department for Transport to help deliver a skilled, diverse and sustainable aviation workforce fit to seize the opportunities of the future. This newly announced cohort will be in action for the next two years, rather than one year, as previously.

The group helps meet the goals of the Generation Aviation programme. This programme sees the UK government, industry and others, including the aviation ambassadors, work to help build an aviation workforce fit for the future, attract diverse and talented people and prepare for new technologies.

The aviation ambassadors play an important role in inspiring the next generation of aviation professionals, championing the sector and acting as role models for prospective aviation workers from all backgrounds.

The Aviation Ambassador Group has 3 main objectives:

  • Raising the profile of the aviation industry: Inspiring the next generation of aviation professionals, championing the sector and acting as role models for prospective aviation workers from all backgrounds. Using social media and communication platforms to improve the visibility of all opportunities in the sector including by showcasing the wide variety of roles that are on offer in the aviation sector such as those that are less understood or are overlooked. 
  • Outreach programmes: Developing and delivering bespoke outreach activities to young people and underrepresented or marginalised groups. This will include attending events designed to educate, inspire and engage young people who would not otherwise pursue opportunities available within the aviation sector. 
  • Career pathways: Supporting the development or promotion of new learning and development opportunities, including considering where pathways into the aviation sector can be created, improved or signposted, including supporting the mobility and retention of skills within the sector.

The Ambassadors:

Alex Durand

Alex has decades of aviation experience and has been chief executive officer of Klyne Aviation for over 10 years, delivering integrated aviation services that fly clients worldwide. He is also a non-executive director for NUNCATS, a UK electric aircraft innovator.

Alex is a champion of aviation – commercial, general and business – and his local community in Norfolk. He sits on the Norfolk chamber of commerce board and works as vice chair of the British Business and General Aviation Association.

He wants to challenge the perceptions of the aviation sector to help build a more diverse, accessible and sustainable future.

Alex is also an ARPAS-UK Member.

Alice Goodwin, Hannah Wells, Honor Puciato, Jack Jenner-Hall, Lilya Turner Hurd, Mariya Tarabanovska, Michael Glen, Mohammad Taher, Nurina Sharmin

Mariya and Nurina work for Flight Crowd, a UK educational non-profit which exists to support the Air Mobility community. They aim to bring together enthusiasts and experts both to educate and to grow the wider public interest in the Future Flight industry.

ARPAS-UK wishes all the ambassadors well.

ARPAS-UK would like to thank Keith Bennett, Chief Pilot – Drone/Counter Drone Lead and Trainer at West Midlands Police, for his work in 2023 as Aviation Ambassador. He has been inspirational in his outreach, and we look forward to continuing to work with him via the NPCC.

15 January 2024

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SEAD Artists consortia unveils programme intended to achieve the UK’s first carbon negative flights

A consortia involving ARPAS-UK Members and using drone technology to revolutionise how landowners, environmentalist and conservationists manage the UK’s vast peatland carbon sink resources has today unveiled their programme to deliver the UK’s first carbon negative aviation project.

Project “Drone RePeat” was recently awarded £500,000 from Natural England’s Paludiculture Exploration Fund to increase awareness of Paludiculture and carbon sink management through greater use of emerging technologies and new agronomy methods. 

With a focus on promoting sustainable land use practices that are environmentally friendly, socially beneficial and economically viable, the programme seeks to use drones to survey, analyse then precision-spray peatlands to seed Paludiculture crops and monitor irrigation and carbon depletion from the soil, creating new ways for landowners to realise value from these difficult-to-manage landscapes.

To scale the project and it’s the carbon negative mandate, the SEAD Artists team are working closely with the CAA to unlock ultra-low level airspace to allow regular airspace access for landowners, asset managers and contractors to use agri-drones and other innovative technologies  in low-level airspace above farmland and peatland.

Andrew Sproson, Co-Founder of Autospray Systems and Project Lead for Project Drone RePEAT said “We’re genuinely excited by the potential drones have to revolutionize the UK’s paludiculture industry,” Andrew continued. “The ability to operate drones over greater distances increases efficiency, creating a framework that allows for scalability and easier drone adoption. This in turn not only enables drone spraying and spreading for current and future Peat Restoration projects, but crucially enables the creation of a commercial market for lowland land owners across the UK, encouraging wider adoption. 

“Preserving England’s largest Carbon Sink is as important as reducing the speed at which the world’s icebergs are melting – once they’ve degraded, peatland takes centuries to re-establish but the crops and moss identified through our trials have been proven to preserve peat and thus contribute toward reducing the benchmark of peat emissions. 

Gareth Whatmore, project partner and founder of DronePrep, which was the architect of the first real-world drone deliveries in England and Scotland for the NHS and Royal Mail, said: “Peat is England’s single largest Carbon store, with 1 million acres of peat soils storing 584m tonnes of carbon – that’s the equivalent of 540 coal-fired power stations!  Peat takes millennia to generate, and bogs store 10 times more carbon than forests.

“Degradation and draining mean these peatlands emit around 11 million tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere every year so improving their management and encouraging restoration is a key part of the UK’s Net Zero strategy.

“The challenge for landowners is that cultivating or restoring peatland is often difficult, due to its bogging and inaccessible nature. 

“Our work has demonstrated that tech solutions, such as the use of drones, can not only help landowners manage their peatland and plant crops to preserve peat stocks but can also support the growing of new, peat-hardy crops that can be manufactured into Net Zero clothing or construction materials.”

Most drones are powered by electricity and Drone RePeat’s calculations suggest the potential carbon gains that could be realised by managing this important but delicate landscape through reduced peatland degradation, maintenance of large carbon sinks and the commercial exploitation of peat-hardy crops, will effectively make the drone flights enabling this innovative approach carbon negative.

Aleks Kowalski, Project Manager of Drone RePeat added, “To respond to the climate emergency the Drone RePEAT team have also formed a partnership called SEAD Artists to develop how our innovative technologies can apply to future carbon management and climate credit schemes which can bring external investment, given that work outside of the Paludiculture project is be focussed on programmes to plant trees via drones at scale. We call on all COP28 delegates and Climate Fund Managers to create a service that allows companies to invest in this technology to match their COP28 objectives and carbon liabilities.”

Jim Milner, Natural England – Paludiculture Exploration Fund project manager, said: The Paludiculture exploration fund aims to explore new crops and products that can grow on wet peat soils. As Gareth says, this creates challenges in managing those new crops we hope to develop and new solutions are needed. This is where SEAD Artists fits in and it is great to see how the team at Drone RePeat is connecting with the wider Paludiculture community.”

The Drone RePeat project consists of the SEAD Artists consortia which currently include the following organisations: 

  • Aerofirm – a world-leading safety case expert around Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) flight
  • AutoSpray Systems – the only UK company permitted to use drones for land spraying and spreading, allowing aerial application of seeds, spores, fertiliser and nutrients to England’s peatlands
  • DronePrep – architects of the first real-world drone deliveries for NHS and Royal Mail, and experts in land ownership and airspace approvals
  • Skypointe – Facilitating connections and insights across multiple technology domains, bringing together domain expertise from over 20 years in manned aviation, uncrewed systems, digital systems with heavy involvement in trade association, regulatory and standards work.
  • TAPSW – A software firm est 2010, are real time data integration specialists focusing on audits at a distance to track, monitor, and evidence events aiding agronomists and agriculture stakeholders in their decision making processes.

For further details, contact [email protected] 

15 January 2024