CAA Call for Input: Review of UK UAS Regulations Aug 2023

[Piers Bowlan]

Submitted my responce and email receipt from CAA received. I wasn't too sure what, 'it must be submitted 'by the 7th' meant. Is that midnight of the 6th or the 7th?

Bit academic now! Night night.

 

[GaryW]

28 minutes ago, MattyB said:

So out of interest, do you also believe Rosa Parks was wrong not to give up her bus seat in Alabama in 1955? What about the suffragettes; should they have stick to housekeeping and family making for their husbands rather than targeting the vote? And presumably all low income families should have paid the poll tax unquestioningly, even if it did put them into bankruptcy? 

 

It thankfully doesn’t happen too often these days in the UK, but sometimes truly awful legislation gets put in place and the authorities refuse to change direction despite the wishes of the populace. In that situation only measured, organised public protest and civil disobedience is likely to effect change. Hopefully it will not be necessary in this case, but taking it entirely off the table would be shortsighted at this point.

 

 

Who Rosa Parks is I cudn't say so cant comment there, if i believed what ur saying about the suffragettes, then my wife wud be chained to the bed & kitchen sink instead of having free will and a mind of her own to decide how she lives her life and as for poll tax,, like all taxes paying them is a legal requirement or pay the penalty for not paying them which even after paying the penalty sometime being time in prison you still had to pay the poll tax just as you do with council tax not like with fines where the penalty you serve wud cancel out the fine and yes even I paid it when i was on lower income and out of work

 

Yes there has been and will be in future legislation and laws even I dont agree with but will still comply with them regardless of my view or disagreement on them..

I didnt agree with pilot registration at first but until i registered I cudnt fly at either of the 2 clubs im in so i registered as that is what is legally required of me so i can fly my models just as i will shud Remote Id actually come about or any other laws that get bought in to govern the hobby

Edited September 6, 2023 by GaryWebb

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Let it go please fellas, get back on topic.

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

Two posts gone, off topic.

[leccyflyer]

20 minutes ago, Piers Bowlan said:

Submitted my responce and email receipt from CAA received. I wasn't too sure what, 'it must be submitted 'by the 7th' meant. Is that midnight of the 6th or the 7th?

Bit academic now! Night night.

 

I took it to mean that the response had to be in before the 7th, so didn't take it to the wire this evening. It will be interesting to see just how many modellers responded to the call for input. No doubt BMFA will be informed of that in due course - though I found it a bit strange that there was no question asking whether you were a member of any national organisation. I would have thought that was more important to know than the age of the respondent?

[MattyB]

20 minutes ago, GaryWebb said:

Who Rosa Parks is I cudn't say so cant comment there, if i believed what ur saying about the suffragettes, then my wife wud be chained to the bed & kitchen sink instead of having free will and a mind of her own to decide how she lives her life

Wow. Consider my gast well and truly flabbered! Perhaps you should consider some light Googling…

 

Right, time to retreat quietly I think to avoid making any more stress or work for the mods - nothing to see here, move along please….!

[MattyB]

7 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

I took it to mean that the response had to be in before the 7th, so didn't take it to the wire this evening. It will be interesting to see just how many modellers responded to the call for input. No doubt BMFA will be informed of that in due course - though I found it a bit strange that there was no question asking whether you were a member of any national organisation. I would have thought that was more important to know than the age of the respondent?

It certainly was a surprising omission given that info would appear to have been useful to the CAA; they could have them easily identified any delta between the views of national association members and those of the general public. Perhaps they did not want to ask because they didn’t want to be accused of using the info to distort/massage the results? Intriguing….

[john stones 1 - Moderator]

I got my 13 digit ID for my response, would ask where I stick it, but I'm not that daft. 😉

[Mike T]

Well I've just filled mine in (took about an hour) and got an instantaneous confirmation.  I looked at the BMFA 'model response' and decided to do a Colin Chapman ("simplify and add lightness"). 

I also cheekily suggested that if RID becomes mandatory, any costs to 'model aircraft operators' should be defrayed by the commercial operators who will be the main beneficiaries of its introduction.  Let those with the deepest pockets shell out!

[Futura57]

23 hours ago, Ron Gray said:

If NRID happens then some will walk away but I do believe the majority will stick 2 fingers up at it and continue to fly. Not wishing to encourage such rogue behaviour but I would be one of those and would welcome the publicity surrounding any resultant prosecution. 

I too would give NRID the finger, but...

 

Will clubs make it a condition of continued membership?

Will it be required for BMFA insurance?

 

I hope not.

[Wookman]

So the local commercial drone operator buys everybody in their local model club a RID. I like it.

[Zflyer]

We have a way to go yet before decision and implementation arrive. I would venture insurance would have this as condition. Whilst we may not like requirement to have RID, i dont think i would give up my pastime. One device will suffice for me in the event its mandated.

[leccyflyer]

Does the current BMFA insurance have the use of CE marked radio gear mandated? The situation would be somewhat analogous.

[steve too]

9 minutes ago, leccyflyer said:

Does the current BMFA insurance have the use of CE marked radio gear mandated?

 

It is not illegal to use non-CE marked radio gear. All the CE mark does is tell the purchaser that it complied with all applicable directives when it was put on the market.

[steve too]

On 04/09/2023 at 13:51, RottenRow said:

The data would be useless to predict the flight envelope of the model in a second or a minute’s time so couldn’t be used for collision avoidance by an approaching UAV unless it gave a very wide berth.

 

RID is not for collision avoidance.

[steve too]

On 05/09/2023 at 19:43, Martin Dance 1 said:

So starting on Friday some person(s) is going to start reading them and presumably extracting key points from each one☺️. or not as the case may be. Perhaps the CAA has invested in AI and the documents will be fed to a computer which will provide an analysis.

 

They will plot bar graphs. That is why the response form is structured as it is. At some point the office junior may be tasked with scanning through the comments.

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by steve too

[Ron Gray]

1 hour ago, Futura57 said:

 

Will clubs make it a condition of continued membership?

Whilst we are jumping the gun a bit, I suspect that the onus of responsibility will rest with the pilot, a bit like the OP id, and whilst clubs may make it a requirement they certainly wouldn’t want to police it as that throws some responsibility back to the officers of the club. 

[Rich Griff]

Hope bmfa are going to introduce s scheme to get flying sites established, but what of lone fliers that have used a non bmfa recognised site like a farmer's field or local slope etc..

 

Presumably the caa will need proof that a particular site has been used for more than 5 years rather than 5 weeks ?

 

Work to do on this me thinks, as a precaution...

Edited September 7, 2023 by Rich Griff

[MattyB]

2 hours ago, Futura57 said:

I too would give NRID the finger, but...

 

Will clubs make it a condition of continued membership?

Will it be required for BMFA insurance?

 

I hope not.

 

1 hour ago, leccyflyer said:

Does the current BMFA insurance have the use of CE marked radio gear mandated? The situation would be somewhat analogous.

 

From the handbook...

 

"Activities
(Liability Insurance) covers the normal and lawful pursuits of the Association and its registered members."

 

I've been at many BMFA events over the years where members have asked (often quite esoteric) questions along the lines of "Are we covered if...". The answer has always come back that, unless you are actively engaged in an intentional criminal act, you are covered. An analogous example from car insurance would be that you are covered for third party liability if you crash and injure someone else whilst speeding, but not if you are do the same whilst driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. However, I am sure the BMFA and policy providers would look at this again and clarify the position if and when RID becomes mandatory.

[MattyB]

More on insurance validity from the RCC site... It seems the BMFA are hedging their bets as to whether not being compliant with current registration practices would invalidate the insurance. I suspect they would take a similar position if RID were to come in...

 

"What about insurance cover if I am not displaying a valid Operator Id on my aircraft? 
Insurance cover can only be fully assured for ‘lawful activities’ and if you do not comply (if required by law) then you will be operating unlawfully, and your insurance cover could be in question in the event of a claim.  It is also important to note that any legal costs and/or punitive financial sanctions incurred by an individual member under criminal law as a result of non-compliance will be outside the scope of cover.

The BMFA’s affiliated clubs will remain fully protected by the BMFA’s insurance in the event of a claim made against them, should individual members be found to be non-compliant."

 

The danger for the BMFA is that if RID came in and individual modellers actively decide not to comply, those members may feel there is little point in re-joining if one of the primary benefits (insurance cover) is no longer applicable to them.

 

Edited September 7, 2023 by MattyB

[leccyflyer]

1 hour ago, Rich Griff said:

Hope bmfa are going to introduce s scheme to get flying sites established, but what of lone fliers that have used a non bmfa recognised site like a farmer's field or local slope etc..

 

Presumably the caa will need proof that a particular site has been used for more than 5 years rather than 5 weeks ?

 

Work to do on this me thinks, as a precaution...

Just out of interest - do you actually currently fly at all?

[leccyflyer]

18 minutes ago, MattyB said:

 

 

From the handbook...

 

"Activities
(Liability Insurance) covers the normal and lawful pursuits of the Association and its registered members."

 

I've been at many BMFA events over the years where members have asked (often quite esoteric) questions along the lines of "Are we covered if...". The answer has always come back that, unless you are actively engaged in an intentional criminal act, you are covered. An analogous example from car insurance would be that you are covered for third party liability if you crash and injure someone else whilst speeding, but not if you are do the same whilst driving the getaway car in a bank robbery. However, I am sure the BMFA and policy providers would look at this again and clarify the position if and when RID becomes mandatory.

 That's always been my position, that the insurance covers the member, provided they are conducting themselves in a lawful manner.

 

I don't want to derail the thread, but I'm currently working on the conversion of an ancient Digimac III to 2.4ghz, using one of Phil Green's excellent 7 channel encoders and a Lemon 2.4ghz module. The set will be dedicated to a particular vintage model and it's my first foray into this sort of modification, which requires opening up the case and making significant changes to the electronics - in this case losing all the 27mhz circuity and just retaining the stick units with their potentiometers, meter and on-off switch. It'll scratch the itch that I always wanted one of those wee blue anodised sets in the early 70's but couldn't afford one. It did cross my mind yesterday evening whether such a modification met all of the requirements for legal operation on 2.4ghz, but I'm reasonably sure that it does. It's nearly done and I'll put some piccies up when I finish it off.

[GaryW]

25 minutes ago, MattyB said:

The danger for the BMFA is that if RID came in and individual modellers actively decide not to comply, those members may feel there is little point in re-joining if one of the primary benefits (insurance cover) is no longer applicable to them.

 

 

Any Rc fliers that decided not to comply on that basis, no doubt it wud end their flying at club fields as BMFA insurance generally is a club requirement and I don't know of a club yet that permits non insure people top fly

 

[leccyflyer]

7 minutes ago, GaryWebb said:

 

Any Rc fliers that decided not to comply on that basis, no doubt it wud end their flying at club fields as BMFA insurance generally is a club requirement and I don't know of a club yet that permits non insure people top fly

 

Just a guess, but I'm guessing from that statement, that you haven't been a member of many clubs or clubs in different locations. The requirement for all club members to be BMFA members is really only for BMFA affiliated clubs. I've been a member of quite a few clubs, several of which had their own insurance and in which BMFA members were actually in a minority. So, the statement that BMFA insurance is generally a club requirement simply isn't the case - that is only true for BMFA affiliated clubs.

[Martin Harris - Moderator]

There’s also a great deal of difference between the requirement for members of BMFA affiliated clubs to hold BMFA membership and enforcement of laws pertaining to model flying which may - or may not - invalidate the insurance element of their membership. 
 

Our club rules simply state that members must operate lawfully - we are not police or CAA agents so the responsibility for legal compliance is the operator/pilot’s although we would not permit illegal acts should we know about them.  We will offer non-expert guidance and help in compliance of course.