UK Government pledges nearly £50 million to power up drone and flying taxi tech and crack down on illegal drones

Drone deliv­er­ies, fly­ing taxis and smarter emer­gency ser­vices could be a step clos­er to use in UK skies, as the Gov­ern­ment awards near­ly £50 mil­lion to unlock growth in the drone and Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty sec­tor.

The announce­ment, which was made on Tues­day, is part of the UK Government’s broad­er ambi­tion to main­tain and expand the country’s posi­tion as an avi­a­tion super­pow­er – includ­ing work to strength­en UK research and inno­va­tion, ensur­ing high-growth sec­tors such as robot­ics and AI have the sup­port they need to thrive. 

This fol­lows oth­er com­mit­ments to accel­er­ate air­space mod­erni­sa­tion, invest £2.3bn in the devel­op­ment of green air­craft, and pro­vide £63 mil­lion sup­port for sus­tain­able avi­a­tion fuel. 

Part of this new £46.5 mil­lion invest­ment will also see a crack­down on ‘face­less’ drones, which can be used in sus­pi­cious or ille­gal activ­i­ty, through the first bespoke drone iden­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem.

The mea­sures will make it eas­i­er for police to iden­ti­fy ille­gal or nui­sance users and clear the way for legit­i­mate drone oper­a­tors.

Deliv­ered through the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), the fund­ing will also cut red tape and sup­port the reg­u­la­to­ry, dig­i­tal and secu­ri­ty foun­da­tions need­ed to bring drones and advanced air mobil­i­ty – such as elec­tric fly­ing taxis – into more rou­tine use across the UK. 

Sophie O’Sullivan, Direc­tor Future Safe­ty & Inno­va­tion at the UK CAA, said: “Our work going on right now is lay­ing the foun­da­tions for com­mer­cial oper­a­tion in the future, unlock­ing rou­tine drone deliv­er­ies, long-range inspec­tions and hos­pi­tal logis­tics.

“This vital fund­ing sup­ports the next gen­er­a­tion of aero­space, strength­en­ing safe­ty and bring­ing eco­nom­ic growth for the UK.” 

The fund­ing also includes £26.5m to dri­ve smarter reg­u­la­tion and cut red tape – mak­ing it eas­i­er for drones to be used in every­day pub­lic ser­vices, and dri­ving eco­nom­ic growth across the UK.  

This includes speed­ing up approvals for drone oper­a­tions for emer­gency respons­es, med­ical logis­tics and infra­struc­ture inspec­tion, dri­ving for­ward reg­u­la­tion to get fly­ing taxis in the sky from 2028. 

Drone oper­a­tors will also ben­e­fit from a stream­lined dig­i­tal appli­ca­tion process, reduc­ing the time required to nav­i­gate reg­u­la­tion and pre­pare appli­ca­tions. 

The Gov­ern­ment is clear that reg­u­la­tion must sup­port growth, with a focus on faster, more pre­dictable approvals and a bet­ter expe­ri­ence for oper­a­tors, while main­tain­ing the UK’s high safe­ty stan­dards.  

This news has been wel­comed by Bris­tol-based Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, as the com­pa­ny con­tin­ues with its flight test cam­paign after two key mile­stones last month.

On April 2nd, its eVTOL air­craft pro­to­type achieved pilot­ed thrust­borne tran­si­tion of a full-scale eVTOL air­craft, tak­ing off ver­ti­cal­ly like a heli­copter and tran­si­tion­ing seam­less­ly into wing­borne flight like a fixed-wing air­craft.

Then on April 14th, it became the sec­ond com­pa­ny glob­al­ly to com­plete a two-way pilot­ed tran­si­tion flight in a full-scale tiltro­tor eVTOL air­craft, and the first to do so under civ­il avi­a­tion Design Organ­i­sa­tion Approval reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight. 

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “This is a wel­come invest­ment in the sec­tor by the Gov­ern­ment. To lead in advanced air mobil­i­ty requires a reg­u­la­to­ry sys­tem that can move at pace while main­tain­ing the high­est safe­ty stan­dards. The UK’s CAA has been a seri­ous and con­struc­tive part­ner. 

“This invest­ment is a fur­ther step towards posi­tion­ing the UK at the lead­ing edge of the eVTOL sec­tor moves towards com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.”

Stephen Wright, Chair­man and Founder of Win­drac­ers, has also expressed enthu­si­asm for the fund­ing. The com­pa­ny engi­neers, man­u­fac­tures and oper­ates ULTRA™, what it describes as the world’s most accom­plished dual-use heavy-lift drone.

With its pro­pri­etary flight and mis­sion con­trol sys­tems, no dual-use heavy-lift drone has com­plet­ed more cus­tomer mis­sions than Win­drac­ers ULTRA with its world-lead­ing capa­bil­i­ties.

Today, Win­drac­ers ULTRA oper­ates glob­al­ly deliv­er­ing BVLOS mis­sions for cus­tomers in Ukraine, Europe, Green­land, the Unit­ed States, Antarc­ti­ca and Africa.

Wright added: “This is a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward for the UK’s drone and advanced air mobil­i­ty sec­tor. Tar­get­ed invest­ment along­side prac­ti­cal reg­u­la­to­ry reform is exact­ly what is need­ed to unlock real world oper­a­tions at scale.

“At Win­drac­ers, we see first-hand how autonomous avi­a­tion can strength­en sup­ply chains, sup­port crit­i­cal ser­vices and oper­ate reli­ably in some of the most chal­leng­ing envi­ron­ments.

“We are proud to work along­side the Depart­ment for Trans­port and the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty as a trust­ed part­ner, help­ing to shape a reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ment that sup­ports UK inno­va­tion while main­tain­ing the high­est stan­dards of safe­ty.”