CAA price increase !!!

[Peter Jenkins]

1 hour ago, cymaz said:

What we get is a 13 digit number on our aircraft that weigh more than 250g. Nothing more , nothing less! 

The BMFA/ SMAE/ LMA have  run the model flying scene with little incident. What we’ve been bulldozed into is, an auction of the sky under 400’, started by the amazons of this world who predicted that drone delivery was here to stay. It was hailed as the next greatest convenience in shopping.....and was about successful as get your groceries from Lidl in a Sinclair C5

There is a good deal more than Amazon's wish to deliver by air.  There are pipeline surveys that are currently carried out by full size aircraft, there are environmental controls that could use drones with great success, there are surveys of crop health that can be carried out with greater granularity than space based sensors, there are emergency services that find drones very helpful in getting a better assessment of emergency conditions to name just a few.  There is the potential for new aerospace companies to enter the market with new products that may give employment and generate tax revenues as mentioned by MattyB.

 

All of you who are looking at this as a purely model aircraft sport issue have missed the whole point of why governments around the world are trying to get into this market.  I'm sorry, but whatever you think about what is offered by the CAA fee you miss the point.  We are able to continue to operate much as we did before the whole drone business came up but we have more pressure for use of the lower airspace.  Remember that if we fly aircraft that weigh up to 7.5 Kg MAUW, and we (members of the associations) are flying outside a FRA then we are allowed to fly up to the limits of our unaided natural eyesight.  I consider that to have been a major coup for the model associations since that was as it was before.  Yes, we do have to pay a fee since we have to register ourselves as an operator but that's a miniscule cost when taking all the costs of building, flying and driving to and from the flying field currently costs us.

 

On that note, I shall not be posting on this or any other discussion on the iniquity of this regulation that has been passed by Parliament.  It is a complete waste of time.  We are all entitled to our views on this forum - I just won't be reading them any more.

[Lima Hotel Foxtrot]

9 hours ago, Peter Jenkins said:

There is a good deal more than Amazon's wish to deliver by air.  There are pipeline surveys that are currently carried out by full size aircraft, there are environmental controls that could use drones with great success, there are surveys of crop health that can be carried out with greater granularity than space based sensors, there are emergency services that find drones very helpful in getting a better assessment of emergency conditions to name just a few.  There is the potential for new aerospace companies to enter the market with new products that may give employment and generate tax revenues as mentioned by MattyB.

 

All of you who are looking at this as a purely model aircraft sport issue have missed the whole point of why governments around the world are trying to get into this market.  I'm sorry, but whatever you think about what is offered by the CAA fee you miss the point.  We are able to continue to operate much as we did before the whole drone business came up but we have more pressure for use of the lower airspace.  Remember that if we fly aircraft that weigh up to 7.5 Kg MAUW, and we (members of the associations) are flying outside a FRA then we are allowed to fly up to the limits of our unaided natural eyesight.  I consider that to have been a major coup for the model associations since that was as it was before.  Yes, we do have to pay a fee since we have to register ourselves as an operator but that's a miniscule cost when taking all the costs of building, flying and driving to and from the flying field currently costs us.

 

On that note, I shall not be posting on this or any other discussion on the iniquity of this regulation that has been passed by Parliament.  It is a complete waste of time.  We are all entitled to our views on this forum - I just won't be reading them any more.

Spot on, I could not agree more. At some point, as a response to this, someone will moan that it's unfair and the drone industry should be paying for the increase, or indeed the entire registration infrastructure. Well, hobby UAVs are part of the airspace so get used to it.

[MattyB]

12 hours ago, cymaz said:

The model flying bodies have my thanks and gratitude for the work they’ve done. I just think it’s been unnecessary from the start. 

All the law abiding flyers were on the bmfa database. A new one need not have been introduced. 

 

We have been over this (many times) before, as have the BMFA who suggested multiple variants of these options over a period of multiple years. At the end of the day this is not about current state where registered pilots just have to put a number on the side of the model - it is a documented intent of the government to bring in electronic conspicuity (remote ID) so that enforcement can be carried out in real time by any officer on the beat.

 

The national associations (remember this is not just BMFA members who would need to be registered) all have membership numbers in different formats, none of them include a checksum for validity checking, and all have their own separate databases. Those factors are entirely incompatible with a system that needs to be able to handle real time automated queries in seconds from a mobile device. As an IT and information security professional I can tell you that setting up and maintaining all those integrations would be a nightmare; you would be baking in lots of additional cost and complexity doing the configuration and testing required to get everything working to keep it operational. There is also the question of who would be responsible (in practical terms for troubleshooting and legal terms for enforcement) if one of those integrations fail and queries cannot be made, rendering enforcement impossible - the BMFA? LMA? CAA?

 

As a result they have chosen the simpler technical solution of government owning the system and all the data within it, exactly as with every other national ID/registration scheme I can think of. Yes, we have to pay £10 for that, but if the national association dbases had been used the costs of creating and maintainig all the integration and testing would almost certainly have exceeded that (remember it needs to be robust and resilient enough to stand up under scrutiny in court).

Edited March 31, 2022 by MattyB

[ken anderson.]

Apart from the CAA......£1......our electric/gas bill has doubled,our council tax  has gone up,our water rates have gone up,diesel has gone up 50p a ltr,and the weekly shop has gone up. Time to come they reckon the phone bills will be going up. On the news earlier a fish and chip shop owner was saying they are struggling to pay there way and will probably close! The big picture is a nightmare for the fact that everything is costing more and more.....where will it end...who knows...but the increase by the CAA is bearable really....what we get for it is another matter.

 

ken anderson...ne...1...where's the dosh coming from dept.

[EvilC57]

If anyone is in any doubt over how we ended up in this situation in the first place, can I suggest they watch 'Article 16 & model aircraft and drone flying from 1st January 2021 with BMFA CEO David Phipps' on YouTube here. Specifically the part between 57:30 and around 1:05:45 where ex-CAA employee Cliff Whittaker explains the background, which dates back to 2001, and had nothing to do with model fliers.

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by EvilC57

[Zflyer]

Does it matter. Its here and it's not going away. There will be increases as time goes on. Fact of life. Can we kill this boring thread now!!!

[Masher]

15 minutes ago, Zflyer said:

Does it matter. Its here and it's not going away. There will be increases as time goes on. Fact of life. Can we kill this boring thread now!!!

Don't spoil it, I have a bet on that this rubbish will get past 5 pages!

 

[Erfolg]

Everything Peter has written is pretty valid.

 

What it does avoid are the issues MattyB raises. Very much the Elephant in the room.

 

In itself the increase is minimal, yet it can be argued it is not to cover increased wage bill at the CAA. Probably less justifiable than many other increases.

 

My main concern with respect to our hobby. The trade becoming ever more a back room, passionate, go getter hobbyist arena. The commercial operators is where both the money and operator growth is. I suspect we are and will become a set of irrelevant sub 400 foot. users, to the CAA.

 

On this basis we just have to pay up, enjoy our hobby, whilst we can.

[Keith Billinge]

Well I am only too glad to be a member of the elite CAA and have my operator number on the front door of my house in foot high letters!

I feel so much safer with the knowledge that I am all registered.

I would gladly sell all my models and flying equipment if it would help the CAA.

All the crime and safety incidents that they have protected us from, is holding the UK together.

It clearly put paid to all those incidents of unregistered drone flyers dropping drugs into prisons and shutting down airports; not to mention all the "peeping tom" activities that have been irradicated by the registration process.

 

Sorry to be so sarcastic; but we did all see it coming.

It was bad legislation, introduced so they can sell the airspace to Amazon and Google for drone deliveries when the time comes.

Remember when the Government sold parts of the radio spectrum to Mobile phone companies. This made them Billions of pounds. When the tech is ready they'll sell the airspace over our heads we model flyers will be kicked out of the air.

 

I sincerely hope the CAA will lose heart with this scheme but I doubt it.

 

KB

[kc]

When you see what they are doing with ordinary hobby drones in Ukraine ( Daily Mail website yesterday reported they bombed Russian arms dumps with them!)  then you know why the governments want to know who uses them and also who has the knowledge to operate them......