UK Government “to Fund over UKP20 Million for British Drone and eVTOL Industries”

Released yes­ter­day, some peo­ple thought this was an April Fool news sto­ry, but no, the Labour Gov­ern­ment is seri­ous about the British drone and eVTOL indus­try, reports gov.uk. The release states, “We want the UK to have an advanced avi­a­tion ecosys­tem where every­one can ben­e­fit from new tech­nol­o­gy while tack­ling emis­sions.”

While any fund­ing in today’s tough finan­cial envi­ron­ment is wel­come, UKP20 mil­lion is bare­ly going to touch the sur­face of the huge amounts of mon­ey required to roll out the impend­ing avi­a­tion rev­o­lu­tion across England’s green and pleas­ant Land. 

Under the British PM Keir Starmer’s Plan for Change enti­tled ‘Mile­stones for Mis­sion-Led Gov­ern­ment’, the release says, “The new fund­ing will unlock bar­ri­ers to growth and max­imise oppor­tu­ni­ties for bet­ter and cheap­er pub­lic ser­vices…”

Adding, “It is designed to advance avi­a­tion tech to sup­port health­care for the NHS, assist police forces in com­bat­ting crime, help inspect and sur­vey crit­i­cal infra­struc­ture and unlock deliv­ery ser­vices for busi­ness­es and com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try.”

This invest­ment will cer­tain­ly pay for a fair num­ber of drones for UK police forces, but one ques­tions how a few mil­lion giv­en to Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, for exam­ple, could be used? Per­haps, to cov­er the cost of a series of bat­tery charg­ers?  

Please Read Arti­cle

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/priorities-for-the-caa-within-the-uncrewed-aerial-system-uas-sector

Mike Kane

Mike Kane, the Labour Avi­a­tion Min­is­ter, com­ment­ed, “I want the UK to have the most advanced avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy ecosys­tem in the world. Our invest­ment along­side the new Future of Flight indus­try group will bring togeth­er tech experts, drone oper­a­tors, fly­ing vehi­cle man­u­fac­tur­ers and local com­mu­ni­ties to iden­ti­fy where change needs to hap­pen.”

He con­tin­ued, “It will sup­port the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DfT) and CAA in enabling faster, inte­gra­tion of drones and fly­ing taxi indus­tries, help­ing busi­ness­es grow and innovate.This includes con­sult­ing on the manda­to­ry use of new elec­tron­ic con­spicu­ity stan­dards and tech­nolo­gies, which allow air­craft to share their loca­tion elec­tron­i­cal­ly, help­ing drones and crewed air­craft fly safe­ly along­side each oth­er.”

Kane will work along­side UK eVTOL and Drone indus­try lead­ers includ­ing Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports and co-Chair of the Future of Flight indus­try group.

He remarked, “I wel­come this com­mit­ment, which will not only dri­ve progress towards a more sus­tain­able and con­nect­ed future but also deliv­er sig­nif­i­cant eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits, high-val­ue jobs and export oppor­tu­ni­ties across the UK.”

The fund­ing will be divid­ed between the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty (CAA), receiv­ing UKP16.5 mil­lion in 2025 to 2026, to deliv­er a reg­u­la­to­ry pro­gram to enable drones to fly beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) and progress toward rou­tine use of fly­ing taxis in UK skies.  

The release explains, “This includes pub­lish­ing a pilot­ed eVTOL ‘roadmap’, devel­op­ment of ‘drone path­ways’ for indus­try to fol­low and con­sult­ing on con­cept of oper­a­tions for uncrewed traf­fic man­age­ment (UTM) and Detect and Avoid (DAA) tech­nol­o­gy.” 

It con­tin­ues, “This will make it quick­er and eas­i­er for indus­try to prove the safe­ty of these new tech­nolo­gies, deliv­er the nec­es­sary dig­i­tal infra­struc­ture and make sure that peo­ple, prop­er­ty and oth­er avi­a­tion remain safe and secure when these new tech­nolo­gies fly in our skies.” 

How can Ver­ti­cal Aero­space Ben­e­fit from the Fund­ing?

Stu­art Simp­son, CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said, “The UK has an incred­i­ble oppor­tu­ni­ty to lead the world in this new era of avi­a­tion, deliv­er­ing not just green­er trans­port but real eco­nom­ic growth and skilled jobs. This lat­est fund­ing is anoth­er wel­come step towards see­ing that ambi­tion realised.”

In addi­tion, the Future Flight Chal­lenge will receive up to UKP5 mil­lion from DfT and Inno­vate UK, to sup­port indus­try to turn these new tech­nolo­gies into prof­itable busi­ness that ben­e­fits com­mu­ni­ties and sup­port growth. This will include region­al demon­stra­tions and sup­port­ing devel­op­ment of com­mer­cial drone and air taxi solu­tions.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, those regions like the Mid­dle East, Chi­na or Amer­i­ca who have a strong desire to lead the eVTOL and Drone indus­tries, would have con­sid­ered UKP20 bil­lion fund­ing rather than UKP20 mil­lion. Europe, sad­ly, seems reluc­tant to invest large sums in these new avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies whether for polit­i­cal or lack of finance rea­sons. 

Yet, any mon­ey per­haps, giv­en the Euro­pean eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ties, is wel­come.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-transport

(Top image: Swarm of drones — Bar­ry Wheeler/UK MoD)

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