New cross-sector working group set up to help inform policy for uncrewed aircraft systems, drones and eVTOL aircraft in UK airspace

The UK’s Future Flight Chal­lenge has launched a new indus­try work­ing group focused on the emerg­ing gen­er­a­tion of vehi­cle types — includ­ing eVTOL air­craft — and the chal­lenges of inte­grat­ing these vehi­cles into the coun­try’s air­space.

Known as The Future Avi­a­tion Indus­try Work­ing Group on Air­space Inte­gra­tion (FAIWG:AI), it has been devel­oped by UK Research and Inno­va­tion (UKR&I), work­ing along­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT), Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA) and Con­nect­ed Places Cat­a­pult (CPC). It will be co-chaired by Vic­ki Mur­die, Inno­va­tion Lead at the Future Flight Chal­lenge and Andrew Macmil­lan, Direc­tor of Infra­struc­ture at Ver­ti­cal Aero­space.

It brings togeth­er stake­hold­ers from the indus­try to help pro­vide input and insight to gov­ern­ment strat­e­gy and reg­u­la­to­ry pol­i­cy for the emerg­ing vehi­cle types. They include uncrewed air­craft sys­tems and drones, those in the advanced air mobil­i­ty sec­tor and hybrid and elec­tric region­al air­craft.

Vic­ki Mur­die, Inno­va­tion Lead for UKRI’s Future Flight chal­lenge and Co-Chair of the FAIWG:AI, said: “Work­ing togeth­er with the DfT, CAA and CPC on the launch of the FAIWG:AI rep­re­sents a land­mark moment for enabling the future flight strat­e­gy in the UK. It is a vital col­lab­o­ra­tion between lead­ing indus­try voic­es from diverse back­grounds across this sec­tor.

“It will help devel­op the col­lab­o­ra­tive think­ing required to set new air­space inte­gra­tion plans on the right foot­ing. I’m look­ing for­ward to tack­ling the key objec­tives we’ve set, as well as under­stand­ing the ideas and oppor­tu­ni­ties from across the new FAIWG:AI mem­bers.”

The FAIWG:AI aims to be the prime voice for air­space inte­gra­tion require­ments across the future flight sec­tor and play a role in the future devel­op­ment of solu­tions and stan­dards to assist air­space inte­gra­tion.

It will fos­ter col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the sec­tor as the air­space strat­e­gy con­tin­ues to devel­op, inform and respond to gov­ern­ment and reg­u­la­to­ry strate­gies, includ­ing the UK air­space mod­erni­sa­tion strat­e­gy col­lab­o­rate with these pol­i­cy mak­ers on solu­tions, stan­dards and spec­i­fi­ca­tions to sup­port this inte­gra­tion across the sec­tor pro­vide a clear, con­sen­sus-based plan to gov­ern­ment by the end of 2022 for the safe inte­gra­tion of these new vehi­cle types into UK air­space.

This will allow com­mer­cial ser­vices to begin no lat­er than 2025, with a clear­ly defined path to sus­tain­able growth to 2030 and beyond. Com­mer­cial ser­vices mean that the ben­e­fits of these new vehi­cles can start to be realised in prac­tice for every­one in the UK.

Mur­die added: “The emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies for new forms of air­craft offer excit­ing devel­op­ments for the future of trav­el and logis­tics, pro­vid­ing an oppor­tu­ni­ty to address essen­tial needs.

“Suc­cess­ful­ly inte­grat­ing an inno­v­a­tive and ful­ly func­tion­ing sys­tem of remote­ly pilot­ed air­craft, advanced air mobil­i­ty and hybrid region­al vehi­cles into UK air­space has huge poten­tial ben­e­fits. This new eco-sys­tem can solve some of the most chal­leng­ing issues for remote com­mu­ni­ties, emer­gency ser­vices, trans­port and trav­el.”

In terms of out­puts, the FAIWG:AI will cre­ate out­puts such as plans, roadmaps, val­ue propo­si­tions and rec­om­men­da­tions for com­mon stan­dards to inform devel­op­ment and scal­ing. The group will also devel­op tac­ti­cal and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion oppor­tu­ni­ties for the sec­tor linked to a more inte­grat­ed air­space strat­e­gy.

An expres­sion of inter­est process was run by the found­ing enti­ties to estab­lish broad rep­re­sen­ta­tion across indus­try asso­ci­a­tions, tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and a range of oth­er rel­e­vant areas.

These include acad­e­mia, soft­ware and sys­tems, trade bod­ies, oper­a­tors, com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies and end users. Fol­low­ing a deci­sion-mak­ing process, the appoint­ments are:

• Sec­re­tari­at: David Pounder, Con­nect­ed Places Cat­a­pult
• Ajay Mod­ha, Anra
• Andy Sage, Nation­al Air Traf­fic Ser­vice (NATS)
• Andy Smith, Loganair
• Chris Gee, Con­nect­ed Places Cat­a­pult
• Craig King, CAA (Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion Strat­e­gy Team)
• Craig Lip­pett, Ani­mal Dynam­ics
• Dan D’Silva, Depart­ment for Trans­port
• Dave Pankhurst, BT
• Gra­ham Brown, Asso­ci­a­tion of Remote­ly Pilot­ed Air­craft Sys­tems (ARPAS)
• Han­nah Tew, Con­nect­ed Places Cat­a­pult
• James Bell, CAA (Inno­va­tion Hub Team)
• Jim Scan­lan, Shared Air­space Coun­cil and Uni­ver­si­ty of Southamp­ton
• Luke Bon­nett, Aero­space, Defence, Secu­ri­ty and Space group (ADS)
• Mark West­wood, Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty and the Drone Indus­try Action Group (DIAG)
• Nico­la Ridd, Depart­ment for Trans­port
• Phillip Binks, Alti­tude Angel
• Ronald Lieb­sch, Volo­copter
• Simon Brown, Tek­Towr and the Insti­tute of Engi­neer­ing and Tech­nol­o­gy
• Simon Whal­ley, Sky­ports
• Tania Roca, Air­port Oper­a­tors Asso­ci­a­tion (AOA) and Indus­try Coor­di­na­tion for the Air­space Mod­erni­sa­tion Strat­e­gy (ICAMS)

To find out more about the UKRI’s Future Flight Chal­lenge, click here.