I am happy to explain the work that has been going on to anyone who want to hear it. We are working hard to make this easy and accessible for all, using equipment that is cost effective and can be used in a way that is safe and legal.
Has it taken too long, yes it has, but that is not the fault of the volunteer team that is leading on this project. This was never going to be as simple as buying a drone and going out and flying it. This is an air system and the CAA and MAA are increasingly treating it in the same way that they do an aircraft, especially when it is corporately managed.
My email is in this thread and I am happy to discuss the project and why it has taken so long to get to this point with anyone that will listen. I want to be flying our drones all across the UK and get every cadet the opportunity to so as often as we can. Inferring that we are dragging our heels on this, is just not true or fair to the team who are working flat out on this. Hence I haven’t been on here.
The sub-250 exemptions are soon to disappear and become the sub-100g ones from 1 Jan 2026. The sub 100g ‘toy’ exemption will also be withdrawn.
This has caused a few problems in some urban areas as we look to what we can use for experiential flying. This is why DJI don’t care if the drone of over 250g.
Are the MAA & CAA in sync with rules or are there additional aspect that come from the MAA that adds to the cadet forces policy that might not apply to organisations such as the Air Scouts?
I heard this was DJIs logic! As well as new rounding error rules. But they are marked and advertised as a C0-class drone! Including C0 sticker. When they are not, per the rules. I just can’t belive the EASA gave them the C0 accreditation. But apparently the ones they got accredited on might have been 249g.
For the record in all of this, I do not blame any volunteers that are working on this project for the delays, nor other problems.
In short, yes, but not really. The MAA have their own rules for governance which we have to adhere to which adds background complexity for governance.
I am not sure what the air scouts are doing but to fly our drones legally everyone needs to have a CAA qualification (roll out this month). This was tested at NASC and has been tweaked as a result of some feedback from cadets and staff. Flying in ir within 150m or a built up area requires another qualification from the CAA (A2 CofC) to be legal. We have trained lots of adults to this standard. The highest level of drone flying is what the CAA call the Specific Category and this allows you to fly close to people, buildings etc. This requires another course, which we have trained lots of adults in now. This latter level is what all military pilots are trained to for small uas use.
This means we have adults who can supervise cadet flying almost anywhere, something we have had approved by the CAA. We have an operators approval from the CAA that allows us to do this and this is a requirement of being able to apply to train the qualifications. You have to be able to do it, to train it.
I do not deny we could have just bought a load of drones, all passed our online CAA flyer ID and gone out into the country (away from people) and flown our drones. But that would have been it, we couldn’t have gone beyond this or offered any tangible qualifications in-house. Also I think the risk appetite of the RAF would not have allowed anyone who has not had any practical training to ever supervise an activity of this nature, whether legal or not.
It may be of interest that the AC and SC are now following our lead on this.
This is what has somewhat stalled our progress a little.
The current qualifications are DMARES, A2 CofC, and GVC and we were in the process of developing an application to be able to deliver these as a CAA approved entity. Then they notified us of a change of tack.
They would now have DMARES and A2 CofC, plus a new suite of qualifications called Remote Pilot Competencies (RPC) levels 1-4. They shared the scope of these and what the content looked like as we would have to apply for a training approval under the new regime. Cue lots more work as the content changed significantly. Some weeks in to that work, their was a change of direction and it would now be RPC Levels 1-3 (no 4) and they wouldn’t be coming in quite as quickly as first thought. So we are now (this week) reverting back to the original plan.
So the new RPC qualifications are coming, but the GVC which is a rough equivalence to RPC Level 1 will be valid until it expires for the same privileges. We will still be delivering GVC well into Q1 of next year to adult staff and likely won’t transition to the RPC until later next year. I don’t think we will be offering RPC L 2 & 3 as I cannot see an application for these quals within RAFAC at the moment but never say never.
