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Drone operation in the UK


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Often wondered how PPGs would fair out with the increased operaton of flying drones in the UK.

What if you stumble across one when flying- is there a risk you could collide? etc...

Today the BBC published an article which has a good summary of the legal requirements for drones in the UK-

Summary as follows-

It is legal to fly your own drone in the UK without any special permission if it weighs less than 20kg and it is flying more than 150m from a congested area

But permission from the CAA is required if it is used for a commercial activity like aerial photography

Permission has been given for inspecting power lines, police use and crop surveillance

Direct visual contact with the drone is currently required at all times

Drones larger than 20kg would have to be approved for use by the CAA for use in UK airspace in the same way as commercial aircraft

The CAA has made clear that it will not ok their use until it is convinced the drone can automatically 'sense and avoid' other aircraft

It would be interesting to hear how the 'sense and avoid' feature would work on these machines- can they detect any aircraft? PPG?

Full article at- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19397816

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'Sense and avoid' systems are in use already. The Google autonomous car has been driving around the roads for some time without incident.

To my mind, the requirements for an autonomous car are considerably more taxing than for an autonomous flying vehicle.

The car must travel within a few feet of other, unpredictable vehicles, pedestrians etc. and can only avoid them within the confines of the road (although it does have the 'stop' option).

A flying vehicle can afford to maintain several hundred metres from anything else in the air and has the benefit of the third dimension (altitude) to avoid obstacles etc.

I have to say I'm not keen on driverless cars using public roads. While Google have shown that one of the world's foremost technology companies can successfully operate one or two vehicles, that is a long way from a production vehicle owned by Fred Bloggs and maintained at Joe's Garage. A small error leading to a 1° course change in a road car is a potential disaster within seconds. In an aircraft, it's a navigational issue.

Apologies for the digression - interesting topic.

Pete.

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I'm the UAV operator featured in the BBC video, so happy to answer any specific questions anyone has!

All UK unmanned operations are currently visual (with an operator on the ground looking for other traffic) unless in segregated airspace so there's a very low risk of collision. In fact with paramotors being amongst the slowest aircraft, they're even easier for the UAV operator to avoid.

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I'm the UAV operator featured in the BBC video, so happy to answer any specific questions anyone has!

All UK unmanned operations are currently visual (with an operator on the ground looking for other traffic) unless in segregated airspace so there's a very low risk of collision. In fact with paramotors being amongst the slowest aircraft, they're even easier for the UAV operator to avoid.

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Yes- the article highlighted a lot of bits that I didn't realise before. My worst fear was drones being launched and left in an 'unattended' mode to follow a pre-set array of waypoints...

As long as the 'rules' are being followed we will be safe.

Not aware of many cases of drones operating in Northern Ireland yet- but apparently the PSNI are trialling them, and Skywatch have used them to try and locate missing persons along the North coastline.

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