UK Civil Aviation Authority Sets Out Potential of Airborne Drones with Future of Flight BVLOS Roadmap

The UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty has pub­lished its Future of Flight: BVLOS roadmap, which sets out oper­a­tional path­ways to unlock the full eco­nom­ic and soci­etal poten­tial of air­borne drones.

Sup­port­ing the UK Government’s major reg­u­la­to­ry reforms, the new roadmap will allow drones to reach their full poten­tial on long dis­tance flights and sets out a straight­for­ward plan for the UK that sees this being ful­ly achieved in the next three years.

It sets out a safe, real­is­tic and pro­por­tion­ate roadmap for the near future, build­ing on the ground-break­ing tri­als already being under­tak­en by UK com­pa­nies con­duct­ing drone deliv­ery and inspec­tions.

Rob Bish­ton, Chief Exec­u­tive of the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, said: “This tech­nol­o­gy has the poten­tial to deliv­er huge ben­e­fits, and our roadmap sets out sen­si­ble and effec­tive reg­u­la­tion that will enable the UK drone indus­try to con­tin­ue to devel­op and grow”.

“We are work­ing close­ly with inno­va­tors and their pos­i­tive reac­tion to our roadmap endors­es our approach and will enable the UK to play a lead­ing role as the mar­ket devel­ops inter­na­tion­al­ly.”

The fly­ing of drones beyond the visu­al line of sight of their oper­a­tor is the biggest chal­lenge fac­ing the indus­try. This involves drones safe­ly shar­ing the air­space with all oth­er types of air­craft, as well as fly­ing over cities and infra­struc­ture.

Drone use that will be ful­ly unlock pub­lic ben­e­fits include:

• Inspec­tions of infra­struc­ture such as rail­ways, pow­er lines and wind tur­bines
• Secu­ri­ty inspec­tions, such as perime­ter inspec­tions of large sites
• Deliv­er­ies includ­ing shop­ping, and med­ical sup­plies and tests
• Emer­gency assis­tance in remote loca­tions

 UK inno­va­tors have wel­comed the move that will stream­line their plans to intro­duce fur­ther BVLOS fly­ing.

Anne-Lise Scail­lierez, CEO of UK drone trade body ARPAS UK said: “ARPAS-UK wel­comes the CAA’s updat­ed BVLOS roadmap. We val­ue this trans­par­ent engage­ment and the focus on use cas­es that deliv­er near-term real val­ue for the sec­tor, sup­port­ed by clear­ly artic­u­lat­ed and pro­gres­sive require­ments for each sce­nario in the longer-term.

“The indus­try is, of course, ready to move faster, espe­cial­ly in low­er air risk oper­a­tions, and we will con­tin­ue work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly to help accel­er­ate deliv­ery.”

Alex Brown, CEO of Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices which oper­ates drone BVLOS flights in the UK said: “The CAA’s BVLOS Roadmap is a wel­come step for­ward for unlock­ing drones’ full poten­tial in the UK.

“By the CAA tak­ing an improved and bold­er stance, and embed­ding indus­try at the cen­tre of pol­i­cy devel­op­ment, togeth­er we can accel­er­ate progress, scale safe­ly, and help unlock drones’ con­tri­bu­tions to pri­vate and pub­lic ser­vices.

“Sky­ports Drone Ser­vices is com­mit­ted to dri­ving this vision for­ward and scal­ing BVLOS oper­a­tions safe­ly, and we look for­ward to the CAA’s clos­er part­ner­ship and sup­port.”

To view and down­load a copy of the Future of Flight BVLOS Roadmap, the doc­u­ment, please click here.