As predicted. OC2FTS “promised” it would be as per CAA rules with a “light” RAFAC touch. Yeah, right.
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A “light touch” that is taking literal years to sort out.
I think my lot have lost interest sadly. I did notice the Air League had drone scholarships though.
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They do, have just completed one. Very well organised and enjoyable
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Still nothing from @Hercules I see. Gone very quite after messing up the syllabus completely. And the running of the first drone course where none of the H&S requirements were followed according to the pictures put out on SM.
I don’t think that personal slights like that are very helpful. Please keep things civil and constructive.
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Well here’s an Instagram post about the new drone training.
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Good, but we need to get a shift on with rolling this out. The Army regulars are using simple racing drones and tools like Velocidrone to train the troops. QRH were demoing this at DSEI.
Appreciate that doesn’t give a civilian qualification, but we need a minimum viable product for mass roll out, now, not something exquisite in several years’ time.
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Yet we are still banned from flying them inside on squadrons because the process was never written.
Cool!
So is this just going to be an Air and Space camp thing then? As it certainly feels that way. We were in this similar situation for last years camp too I think!
I’ve been nosing around the drone industry a bit recently and there are some interesting developments around UK (or EU) manufactured parts.
Not whole systems as yet but hopefully it might make it easier for us to source ‘compliant’ kit.
I don’t know if the process can move from ‘you can only use these’ to ‘you can use one if it doesn’t contain x or y parts from z’ but hopefully it will.
(I wanted to move this to the Drones on Squadron thread but it won’t let me!)
The policy / guidance on Chinese connected vehicles certainly seems to work like that (e.g. a shortish list of banned vehicles rather than trying to list everything that isn’t Chinese).
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I saw a photo of a DJI drone being handed over to a unit from HQ last night so they appear to just be using DJI kit despite I thought it was on the banned list?
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Think I saw the same one this morning and had the same reaction
Off-topic I know, but there’s been some controversy over DJIs newest sub 250g drone. As it’s not actually sub 250g! Meaning, it’s illegal to use if you’re relying on the laws for sub 250g drones.
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If someone can move the drone not course posts to the other thread I’d be grateful. I don’t think I can!
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Hey everyone…
So if it is 2 FTS done then it can be used on certain defence estate. Privately owned ones cannot for reasons various.
I would love to know the difference!
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A bit of a quick update for everyone who may be interested.
There will be a RPAS Town Hall in November for all adult staff. We will talk about the entire project and more specifically the Blue and Bronze which will be available by then.
We will talk about the new RPAS Sqn structure and how people can get involved in that and how it will be supporting delivery of flying across the regions at approved training sites.
We are continuing to train adult volunteers to be instructors and coaches and we are investing heavily in drone training and instruction techniques courses (AET) for many. There is a course a month for the next few months. Applications should go through your RPAS Regional Lead or RAvnO.
We have also invested heavily in equipment and this is now being sent out to the regions (this may some of the drones you mentioned above). This will allow the regions to be in a position to support experiential flying and training.
The CAA approval has been exceptionally challenging as the shifting sands at Gatwick keep moving. This means our approval to deliver Silver and Gold levels has been pushed back a little but this won’t restrict us as we go into next year. This has been a long haul and exceptionally difficult for the small team to achieve whilst also ramping up to deliver flying in a safe and appropriate way.
But I am glad to say that we are getting there and the trial of Bronze at NASC was well received by all who did it and now we just need to get this to the squadrons by the end of this month. Happy days!!
Happy to be back, and I have been busy. If you can email your concerns and what I messed up, in terms of syllabus and or H&S, I would be happy to arrange to discuss this with you face to face.
Summary
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