patrickegan
Veteran
Location: Sacramento, CA
| In the UK, aircraft that are not regulated by EASA are subject to the Air Navigation Order (ANO). The ANO requires all aircraft to have certificates of airworthiness except for those that are specifically excluded.
One category that needed to be excluded was model aircraft. For that reason the ANO includes a definition of small aircraft as being under 20 kg, which is not subject to certification. Later, some individuals wanted to take and sell pictures, which is Aerial Work. So the rule was changed to require permission of the CAA if the aircraft is over 7 kg. This was always seen as an interim solution.
All this happened many years ago.
5 years ago at this Paris conference I gave a presentation and I was asked why the CAA does not regulate at the lower weights. At the time I said that we had not identified a safety need, BUT if we found that significant numbers of aircraft were likely to be operated regularly in close proximity to people or property, expect that position to change!
Now, the situation has changed. In the last year, aircraft such as the microdrone have appeared and the police services and others, including the Paparazzi, want to use them. We have therefore identified the need to regulate to protect the public.
We have looked very carefully at the rule change because we must avoid applying greater regulation to model aircraft flyers. (They are not a concern because he whole point of model flying is to fly close to yourself, with no interest in operating near third parties).
We have looked at categorising by commercial use, but that does not work in all cases. For example an organisation taking pictures and using them for its own purposes (including the police, security companies private detectives etc) is not necessarily within the definition of Aerial Work.
We therefore settled on the main difference between UAS and model aircraft, which is that UAS take pictures or acquire data. That is why the proposal is written as it is.
Is the intention to regulate small aircraft that are going to take photographs to sell? Yes it is. And the reason is to protect the public from a proliferation of such activities without appropriate safeguards.
We do not envisage a complex or burdensome regulatory structure, nor a punitive charging system. It will be necessary for those who want to carry out such activities to apply for permission and to provide justification that what they intend to do will be safe, through the definition of operational procedures (such as minimum distances from buildings and 3rd parties appropriate to the characteristics of the aircraft). The permission will be conditional on the agreed procedures being adhered to.
For model flyers who want to take pictures for their own enjoyment it will simply be necessary for their model association to agree the constraints with the CAA. We should then be able to issue one permission for all members of the association to take pictures within those constraints. We would expect these to be similar to, if not identical to, those that we currently attach to exemptions for models flown by the Large Model Association (i.e. above 20 kg).
C.Whittaker
CAA |
