CAA

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CAA: Airspace Change Process Consultation CAP1616

The CAA has launched a consultation on proposals to modify the guidance on the regulatory process for airspace change, known as CAP1616.  

On first publication in 2018, the CAA committed to review the CAP1616 process three years after its implementation. The review gives the CAA the opportunity to reflect on the lessons learned and make further improvements to the airspace change process.

You can respond to the consultation at the dedicated website.

The consultation closes on 5 March 2023.

16 January 2023

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Serious drone prosecution highlights need for drone users to understand and follow safety rules

  • Incident is one of the most serious seen in the UK with a drone
  • Drone pilot pleaded guilty to endangering the safety of an aircraft
  • Aircraft involved was an extremely rare and historic Hurricane from the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight
  • Civil Aviation Authority is reminding drone users of the need to fly safely and follow the rules or face serious consequences

Following a drone pilot pleading guilty to endangering the safety of an historic Second World War Hurricane aircraft when flying his drone, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has called on all drone users to follow the safety rules.  

The incident happened on Saturday 9 July 2022 during a fly-past by the RAF’s Battle of Britain Memorial Flight Hurricane aircraft over the Buxton Carnival in Derbyshire. The flight was protected by a short-term airspace restriction which banned all other flying in the area, including drones.

In the UK drone users follow aviation safety rules set by the UK Civil Aviation Authority.

Virtually all drone users have to register with the CAA* and take an online flyer test. This helps them to understand the safety requirements and includes information about checking the airspace where they want to fly.

Jonathan Nicholson, Assistant Director at the UK Civil Aviation Authority, said:

“Flying a drone and endangering an aircraft in this way is totally unacceptable. Drone users have an obligation to understand and follow the rules. While flying a drone can be great fun, it also comes with significant responsibilities. People need to check airspace before they fly their drone and only fly where it is safe and legal to do so.

“Airspace restrictions, like the one in place for this case, apply to even the smallest drones, so it’s really important that people check before they fly. When you use a drone you’re sharing the airspace with many other types of aviation, so it’s vital that drone users consider the safety of everyone when flying.”

PC Matt Moore, Flight Safety Manager for the Derbyshire Constabulary drone team, said:

“Anyone using a drone must follow the rules to make sure they fly safely. As a police drone unit we know the benefits drones can bring to society, but people using a drone in this way not only threaten the safety of aircraft and the public they also damage the future use of drones.”

Even when flying below the 400ft / 120M maximum height for drones it is still possible to be sharing the airspace with other aircraft, such as emergency helicopters and military aircraft.

An RAF spokesperson said:

“The RAF regularly conducts essential low flying training across the UK, drones operating in the vicinity of our aircraft can offer a significant threat to their safety and can be extremely challenging for our aircrew to spot and take avoiding action. Therefore, if a drone operator becomes aware of any military aircraft flying in their vicinity, we would request that they cease flying until the aircraft has passed.”

Other key safety rules from the UK Drone and Model Aircraft Code include:

  • Never fly more than 120m (400ft) above the surface
  • Always keep your drone or model aircraft in direct sight, clearly enough that you can tell which way it’s facing
  • Never fly in an airport’s flight restriction zone unless you have permission

With nearly 300,000 people registered as drone flyers in the UK their use continues to grow both for recreational and commercial purposes. The rules are in place to make sure that drones can safely integrate with other areas of aviation.

Notes to Editors:

The drone pilot was arrested and subsequently charged with endangering an aircraft and operating a drone out of the visual line of sight.

He pleaded guilty to both charges before magistrates at Chesterfield Justice Centre today (Monday 9 January) and he is set to appear again in February for sentencing.

The CAA’s website at www.caa.co.uk/drones contains information for drone users.

*You must register before flying most drones or model aircraft outdoors in the UK. There are two requirements and you may need to meet both:

  • if you’ll fly a drone or model aircraft, you must pass a free online theory test to get a flyer ID
  • if you’re responsible for a drone or model aircraft, you must register online for an operator ID

It is against the law to fly a drone or model aircraft without having the required IDs.

You do not need to register if you’ll only use a drone or model aircraft that weighs below 250g and is a toy or does not have a camera.

You can register and get a flyer ID at www.register-drones.caa.co.uk

9 January 2023

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DIAG Minutes: November 2022
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CAA Updates to CAP722 and AMC & GM

ARPAS-UK Comment: There is a lot to read here. We will do so and come back to you in due course. The important part is making sure you read this too!

The CAA has published a decision introducing new Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) for UK Regulation (EU) 2019/947 (ORS9 No 16), which is effective immediately. This provides a way of complying with regulatory requirements and can be found in the regulation library. Direct link to AMC & GM is here.

As a result, CAP 722, CAP 722A, CAP 722B, CAP 722C, CAP 722D and CAP 722E have been re-published, and CAP 722H (Pre-Defined Risk Assessments) has been newly published.

There have been significant changes to all these documents, in particular- CAP 722A, and UAS Operators and Remote Pilots are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the changes. UAS Operators and Recognised Assessment Entities are asked to start to implement these changes within their operations, before the end of January 2023.

8 December 2022

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Protected: CAA Committees

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EU Drone Strategy 2.0: “Innovative Aerial Services”, not drones.

The European Commission issued its Drone Strategy 2.0 for a Smart and Sustainable Unmanned Aircraft Eco-System in Europe.

The report is available following this link. It gives a good idea of what is still needed to reach a thriving drone/RPAS/eVTOL market. Below are some take-aways.

 

Market size: €14.5 billion by 2030

“With the right framework in place, the drone services market in Europe could by 2030 reach
a value of €14.5 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 12.3%, and create 145,000
jobs in the EU28″.

Technological synergies between civil, security and defense – and presumably R&D funding synergies as well.

“The drone eco-system also includes the defence/military dimension for the purpose of
achieving technological synergies between civil, security and defence sectors.”

Renaming away from drone to Innovative Aerial Services (IAS) that embraces ”Aerial Operations“ (with drones) and Innovative Air Mobility“ (with eVTOL).

“On the civil side, the drone services market includes three segments which are interlinked: the new Innovative Aerial Services (IAS), including two segments: ”Aerial Operations“ (surveillance, inspection, mapping, imaging, …), and “Innovative Air Mobility“ (IAM), covering international, regional and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) and thirdly, ”U-space“. Although first IAM operations are expected to be conducted with manned eVTOL aircraft, such operations will likely be in the future performed on similar platforms but remotely piloted and then fully autonomous.”

List of 19 Flagship Actions:

  1. adopt amendments to the Standardised European Rules of the Air and the Air Traffic Management/Air Navigation Services Regulation to safely integrate drone and piloted eVTOL operations;

  2. promote coordinated research on integrated Communication, Navigation and Surveillance technologies;

  3. adopt new European standard scenarios for low to medium risk aerial operations;

  4. adopt rules for the ‘certified’ category of drone operations, addressing the initial and continued airworthiness of drones subject to certification; and the operational requirements applicable to manned VTOL-capable aircraft;

  5. adopt rules for the design and operations of vertiports under the scope of EASA Basic Regulation;

  6. develop balanced economic and financial requirements for licensing of drone operators.

  7. fund the creation of an online platform to support a sustainable IAM implementation by authorities, cities, industry and stakeholders;

  8. adopt training and competences requirements for remote pilots and pilots of VTOL aircraft.


    List of Actions to be implemented by the European Commission to strengthen the European drone civil, security and defence industry capabilities and synergies . The Commission intends to:

  9. continue to provide funding for R&I on drones and their integration into the airspace under the Horizon Europe programme and the European Defence Fund;

  10. set up a coordinated series of calls under the existing EU instruments and EIB loans to support a new flagship project on ‘drone technologies’;

  11. consider possible amendments to the existing financing/funding framework to ensure a consistent approach in support of dual-use research and innovation to improve synergies between civil and defence instruments;

  12. develop a Strategic Drone Technology Roadmap in order to identify priority areas to boost research and innovation, reduce existing strategic dependencies and avoid the emergence of new ones;

  13. coordinate with other relevant EU actors a common approach with the aim of providing sufficient radio frequencies spectrum for drone operations;

  14. set up an EU network on civil-defence drone testing centres to facilitate exchanges between civilian and defence sectors;

  15. encourage all relevant actors to further align certification requirements for civil and military applications towards those set by EASA while considering military specificities and existing military certification standards;

  16. adopt new standard scenarios for civil operations that could facilitate corresponding military use cases;

  17. adopt a counter-drone package;

  18. adopt an amendment to the aviation security rules aiming to ensure that aviation authorities and airports increase their resilience when faced with the risks posed by drones;

  19. define criteria for a voluntary “European Trusted Drone” label

ALS 2 Dec 2022

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Open category transition period extended to 1 Jan 2026. No Class marking in the UK (at all or at least for now).

The Open Category transition period is extended in the UK to 1 January 2026 following a formal decision by the Department for Transport. The CAA has updated its guidance on 2 December, please read here.

This extension follows the outcome of the CAA’s consultation published last June where 70+% of the 4500 respondents favoured an extension beyond twenty-four months. ARPAS-UK was in favour of a 24 months extension.

Presumably, respondents voted for the ability to use their legacy drones beyond December 2022… and may not have considered that the transition extension would also trigger the postponement of class marking drones in the UK.

To be fair, the implementation of Class marking in Europe has also taken more time than anticipated, and many would say that the Open Category has been over-engineered from the start and too complex for the hundreds of thousands of pilots flying in the Open Category.

In Europe, the transition period is extended to 1 January 2024. Identifying and nominating the notified bodies that would perform the homologation, defining precisely the standards for drone class identification labels and going through the process of certification with the drone manufacturers has taken time. We know only of 2 CE marking drones to date:

  • In June 2022,  SenseFly announced that the eBee X Series Drones were the world’s  first to receive EASA’s C2 Certificate.
  • In August 2022, DJI announced that they were granted the world’s first C1 Drone Certificate for its DJI Mavic 3 series.
  • We understand that DJI was targeting the class marked C0 before year-end for its DJI Mini 3.

Coming back to the UK, the EU class marking has no legal recognition in the UK, and the structure of identifying homologation bodies, going through a verification process… is not in place in the UK. “The CAA will start to remove references to class markings from guidance material shortly”.

Drone manufacturers sell global products and drones with EU Class marking will probably be sold on the UK market. Operators will enjoy the additional safety features, but it will not change the authorised operations, they will continue to operate within the existing provisions in the Open category:

CAP2012

ALS 2 Dec 2022

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Funding: The Future Flight Skills Challenge. ARPAS-UK welcomes collaboration

Future Flight: Closing the Skills Gap

Competition Opens

Monday 21 November 2022

Competition Closes

Wednesday 1 February 2023 11:00am

Funding Type

Grant

Project Size

Your project’s total grant funding request must be no more than £50,000.

The Future Flight Challenge  for Innovate UK, part of UK Research and Innovation, will invest up to £500,000 in projects to close aviation industry skills gaps.

The aim of this competition is to create and deliver course content and materials that will support skills, talent and training across the future flight sector. The purpose of this is to build awareness of future flight emerging markets and fill key gaps in the UK’s workforce talent and training capabilities.

Projects can deliver one or more of these objectives:

  • schools’ engagement
  • apprenticeships and internships
  • upskilling and reskilling of existing workforce
  • technical courses and vocational training
  • undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development (CPD)

This list is not intended to be exhaustive.

In applying to this competition, you are entering into a competitive process. This competition closes at 11am UK time on the deadline stated.

ARPAS-UK welcomes collaboration on projects for this Challenge

Please contact: [email protected]

Click here to access the Competition Briefing

Click here for more information

ARPAS-UK
Clogworks1-1

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The Effectiveness and Efficiency of the CAA

This call for evidence relates to the effectiveness and efficiency of the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). It is part of evidence-gathering for the Department for Transport’s review of the CAA. It does not cover departmental policy.

The CAA is the United Kingdom’s independent specialist aviation and airspace, safety, security, consumer rights, spaceflight, and economic regulator. The CAA ensures:

  • the aviation industry meets the highest safety standards
  • consumers have a choice, value for money, and are protected and treated fairly when they fly
  • the efficient use of airspace to manage the environmental impact of aviation on local communities and the reduction of CO2 emissions
  • compliance with regulations so that security risks are effectively managed by the aviation industry

The call for evidence will not consider the CAA’s safety and airspace regulation approach, nor will it assess the operations of CAA’s subsidiary, Air Safety Support International (ASSI). The legal/statutory position for ASSI and its distinct role from CAA leaves it out of scope.

The consultation opened: 28 November 2022

The consultation will end on: 29 January 2023

To Respond to the Consultation
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A2 Certificate of Competence: update

Holders of an A2 Certificate of Competence that references transition and legacy period dates of 31 December 2022, may continue to use these privileges until either the expiry date of the certificate, or the end of the new transition/legacy period (on 01 January 2026) whichever is sooner. A re-issue of the certificate is not required.

From the CAA’s Updates on Drones & also issued via Skywise on 22 November 2022