Any and all information I post will be obtained through open source materials, and any views or opinions expressed will be my own.
1 Year till the transition!!
With just over one year left till the new classes for drones/SUAS come into effect within the UK, we are still to see a new drone hit the market with this marking!! The rumours are the new Mavic 3 from DJI is in the process of gaining the mark required to fly in the C2 class, we will see if this materializes or if the civilian market has yet another drone to be flown in the A3 class after the December 2022 deadline. For professional pilots flying off OAs (Operational Authorizations) little is going to change at the moment!!, but for the hobbyist sector many of whom regard themselves as professional pilots fail to understand the A1-3 class let alone the C0-5 when the C class markings come into effect, with most failing to understand the differences between the categories as well.
All pilots with and without qualifications need to know the open category and that after the 2023 unless you fly the Mini series or equivalent every other drone will move to the A3 Class. And the most important thing the with Mini series and alike under the CAA classes it is not classed as a toy!! You are required to pay the annual £9 fee if you own the drone to get an operators ID, and anyone can fly your drone if you and they have passed the free CAA online course to get your flyer ID.
The biggest bug bearer for professional pilots now is the fact these hobbyist pilots believe they can work for money, unless they have a minimum of an A2 COC qualification they can't. And remember most hobbyist drone pilots won't even have recreational insurance let alone proper public liability. If you do fly recreationally and are interested in insurance for recreation see www.dronecoverclub.co.uk they offer a variety of different covers at good prices.
To summarize, I've kept this short this section could go on for sometime. Professional or hobbyist pilots now have even more responsibility placed on them to fly within the rules and guidance set down by the CAA, personally I believe the old systems worked better and made for safer multi user airspace. Only time will tell if the new rules work. Unless your Drone is a toy which would suggest no camera or can only be flown indoors only you are required to register your drone. And in all cases get the free flyer ID from the CAA as a minimum. Before any flight ensure you use an app like Drone Assist to check your airspace before you fly.
If you believe a drone is being used in a dangerous manner or breaching privacy rules (looking through your windows) within the UK you can report it to the police on 101 or their 101 website, you can also report it on the DroneAlert website www.drone-detectives.com. At no stage are you to physically take the drone out the sky with any sort of weapon.
Any and all information I post will be obtained through open source materials, and any views or opinions expressed will be my own.
Weaponized Drones?!!
As soon as you say weaponized drones people immediately think military, for years they where the only people to fly these sort of drones and will continue to fly the ones we all think off Reaper, Protector, Predator to name just a few. But when we think about CUAS (Counter Unmanned Air Systems) environment we are on about the the nefarious actors around the world using commercially brought and then adapted drones to be used for actions they are not designed for!!
If we look at a few examples of this we have:
The Mexican cartel www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-56814501 they use drone tech that has been adapted to their needs to strike rival cartels and police.
Terrorist groups, there are numerous articles throughout the internet of Terrorist groups using drones throughout conflicts to target what they deem as threats and to recce targets before an attack. In some cases these groups are creating factories to adapt these low cost alternatives into killing machines on an industrial scale.
And linking to the one above Drone at Pennsylvania electric substation was first to 'specifically target energy infrastructure,' according to federal law enforcement bulletin - CNNPolitics in America a drone although not weaponized in the conventional method like above was used to target energy infrastructure.
We can see from the few examples above (if you go on the internet there are hundreds/thousands of examples of drones being weaponized) that the threat is out there I maybe relatively new to the CUAS world compared to some but I share the opinion of the majority within this sector when they say, its not matter of if a drone attack of this nature will happen its just a matter of when. Another short section and it sort of looked like it deviated away from CUAS but you need to know the threats posed to be able to counter.
Any and all information I post will be obtained through open source materials, and any views or opinions expressed will be my own.
Next Week
From the RPAS side of things we will look at apps and online software for checking airspace prior to flying.
CUAS will be about a full scale counter drone exercise conducted by Interpol.