UpAboveUk provides this free service for Charities without compromising on safety and quality which are always paramount and are inspired by John's incident free professional career
UpAboveUk uses various applications to ensure a safe operational environment for the general public and personnel
SUAS (drone) Safety
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The mainstream media has, so far, mostly portrayed the use of SUSA (drone) in a nefarious manner, being used or more pertinently, misused, to cause risks to safety, security or privacy of high profile people or the general public.
This portrayal by the media is the exact opposite of how the highly skilled and technically knowledgeable SUSA (drone) orgisations such as UpAboveUk operate.
For all uses of SUSA (drone) equipment, in line with the EU and United Kingdom Law and Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations/guidance, there is a robust set of rules, restrictions and aviation accreditation procedures, moderated by the CAA.
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It is imperative for prospective clients to ensure any drone operator they are going to employ holds the relevant commercial and aviation SUSA (drone) insurances (must be fully compliant with EC 785/2004) before instructing SUSA (drone) works to be undertaken.
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UpAboveUk holds cover for £25,000,000, any one occurrence during the period of insurance in respect of Public Liability.
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SUSA (drone) Regulations-Update 2021
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2021 brings with it a whole new set of regulations changes for the UK Drone industry, the biggest change that we've seen. On the same day that we officially transitioned out of the European Union, we adopted the regulations that has been in development for more than 5 years for a harmonised set of drone regulations for Europe.
Due to the impacts of Brexit, although our regulations are very closely aligned with the rest of Europe, we may now start to see deviations as all future changes will now come through the UK CAA only and not EASA.
All Operations will be carried out in accordance with, and abide by the requirements of ANO2016 - 2020 Amendment and UAS Implementing Regulation 2019/947 (as retained in UK Law).
Amended by;
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CAP 722 - v8, 5th November 2020,
CAP 393 - March 2019,
CAP 1789A - April 2020,
CAP2013: Air Navigation Order 2020 Amendment - 31 Dec 2020
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Relevant sections:
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- endangering safety of any person or property
- small unmanned aircraft requirements
CAP2013 – small unmanned aircraft; height restrictions on flights
CAP2013 – small unmanned aircraft: restrictions on flights that are over or near aerodromes.
-OF INTEREST-
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You will have noted a succession of stories following the reports of SUSA's in the air over British airports and in proximity to aircraft. The SUSA community has consistently asked for a better quality of investigation and reporting into these cases, because so far the absence of reported tangible evidence of a SUSA's being present casts doubt on the validity of the official reaction.
For too long the official records of air proximity incidents have relied upon a shockingly low standard of proof when apportioning blame to SUAS operators, and this situation has contributed to something of a panic over the issue.
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It seems that some members of the British SUSA flying community are on the case though. Airprox Reality Check are a group analyzing air proximity reports and linking them to contemporary ADS-B and weather records to identify possible explanations. They have devised a rating system based upon a number of different metrics in an attempt to quantify the reliability of a particular report, and they are tabulating their analysis of air proximity reports on a month by month basis.
This includes among many analyses such gems as Airprox Report #2019046, in which an Embraer 170 flying at 9000 feet and 20 km offshore reported a SUSA in close proximity. The Airprox Reality Check analysis points out that no known SUSA could manage that feat, and refers to a passing Boeing 737 revealed through ADS-B data as a more likely culprit.
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Their latest news is that they have made a Freedom of Information request to the Air Proximity Board, asking for what evidence the Board has of a SUSA having been involved in any of the over 350 incidents in UK airspace having been reported as involving SUSA/drone's. The official response contains the following quote:
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"in all cases UKAB has no confirmation that a drone has flown close to an aircraft other than the report made by the pilot(s). Similarly, other than from the report of the pilot(s), UKAB has no confirmation that a drone was involved."
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This confirms the view of the multirotor and SUSA community that has been reported in the past, that the whole British drone/SUSA panic has been based upon unreliable and uncorroborated reports from eyewitnesses with little direct experience of multirotors.
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If any irresponsible drone operator is flying into close proximity with aircraft or otherwise into protected airspace then it goes without saying that they should be prosecuted, yet it seems that the community is being punished as though this had happened when the reality is that no such acts are proven to have occurred.