CAA Proposes 8.3% increase in Operator Registration Fee from April 2024

[Martin_K]

In all the above description of 'innovation' the CAA does not explicitly say, manage all aircraft within one air traffic control system, which is what I think they are working towards?

[Cuban8]

I, and certainly all those modellers that I know, couldn't care less about the contents of the above document, but are concerned that we've been caught on a sort of bureacratic fly paper that has trapped us and embroiled our model flying in a situation that we should never have found ourselves in. Thankfully, our national body has done its best to engage with the authorities and with the exception of the imposition of the  'ten quid tax' and some silly paperwork and tick boxes, has allowed us to carry on doing our stuff pretty much as always. Excellent, well done! The mind boggles at where we might be if those discussions with CAA didn't happen for whatever reason.

We as model flyers are not unreasonble people and can see the merit of our hobby working within perfectly sensible regulations, national laws and local by-laws as it has done for many decades. Insurance, no matter what or where one flys is a very wise idea to have in these days of litigation at the drop of  hat.

If the lower airspace was at  immediate risk of becoming a packed highway of unmanned commercial or emergency service drones and there was even a slight risk of a model aircraft posing a risk to them, we could see the point. I can't see any evidence where the numbers of UAVs in 'our' airspace will reach a number or density that could possibly cause a problem for the safety of either user. Will there ever be a time when any reasonable person believes that it will? The evidence points to nothing of the sort beyond a few tests and experimental services delivering stuff to people who never previously knew that they needed the service. I truly suspect that in twenty years the situation will be not much further forward than it is now.

I do agree that the emergency and security services along with other specialist users do make very good and extensive use of drone technology and I welcome and applaude that. Unless there's and incident close to where models are being flown at the time or if the emergency drones are needed to fly over a large gathering of people or might affect a live airport or airfield - the risks are very, very small compared to say a police car, fire engine or ambulance attending an emergency at high speed. Due to those drivers' expertise and professionalism serious accidents are rare.

 

I believe that we pose, and will continue to pose, no more risk to UAVs than I do to the traffic on the road outside my house when I cut the grass with my mower on my front lawn. My mower doesn't go on the road and unless there's a terrible accident, traffic keeps off of my lawn. I neither have to register my mower or pay to use it........what difference would it make anyway.......sounds familiar?

Edited November 27, 2023 by Cuban8

[RottenRow]

In an ideal world, the air above us, at least up to say 1000 feet, would be treated like a sort of ‘common land’; open for the free use by anyone.

 

Any user of that common airspace who felt that their particular activity was at risk due to everyone else should be the ones to take any measures necessary to protect their interests.

 

Obviously special measures would be in place around active airports etc.

 

Now that would be innovation…
 

Oh, I have just woken up! That must have been a dream!

 

Brian.

[Keith Billinge]

An unecessary fee gets increased to fund an unecessary bureacracy in no way making anybody any safer. All in the name of safety.

 

An unecessary  tax on model flyers that will not be paid by bad actors and those causing the percieved safety problem.

 

100years of safe flying kicked to the kerb in the name of compliance, not safety!

 

KB

[kc]

When did we get notified to pay the CAA fee this year?   My CAA registration had been arranged through BMFA.    When I paid my BMFA  direct by phone and credit card they didn't take the CAA fee as they didn't know about it ( that's what the BMFA lady said last December ) so how should it have been paid?     

[steve too]

2 hours ago, Martin_K said:

In all the above description of 'innovation' the CAA does not explicitly say, manage all aircraft within one air traffic control system, which is what I think they are working towards?

 

Indeed. The CAA seem to want everything to be visible to/interfaced with a massive traffic management system.

[steve too]

21 minutes ago, kc said:

When did we get notified to pay the CAA fee this year?

 

https://register-drones.caa.co.uk/check-a-registration

[J D 8]

  There is always someone thinking up a safety or welfare issue based scheme [ scam if you like ] because of a perceived problem that might and only might just become a major issue in future.

  About 15 years ago someone in D.E.F.R.A. decided that because of some fails in animal welfare rules [ should have been sorted by the law's already in place] all farmers who transported their own animals [ even the odd one now and then ] should have to do a animal transportation course. 

We were charged some £70 each to attend one and much like the CAA one it was set up so all answers were available and a fail was very unlikely. The people who did the job for Defra made a pretty penny I recon.

I the ten years after I was never asked to show the license I was issued.

A couple of years ago the scheme was ditched for farmers who transport their own animals.

  I think it was pointed out that if farmers transporting their own property had to be licensed then so should all other private individuals transporting horses, cat's, dog's ect.

That would have gone down like a lead balloon.

 

A rant a day helps you work rest and play.😉

 

 

Edited November 27, 2023 by J D 8
spelling

[Futura57]

19 minutes ago, J D 8 said:

 

A rant a day helps you work rest and play.😉

 

 

 

Why stop at one 🤪

 

Actually I end up getting myself wound up. My wife says I will have a heart attack. Better check that insurance.

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

1 hour ago, kc said:

When did we get notified to pay the CAA fee this year?   My CAA registration had been arranged through BMFA.    When I paid my BMFA  direct by phone and credit card they didn't take the CAA fee as they didn't know about it ( that's what the BMFA lady said last December ) so how should it have been paid?     

Notifications go out from the BMFA system 28 days before your Operator ID expires which is the earliest we can renew it. The CAA system sends a reminder 21 days before expiry which is the earliest it can be renewed through the CAA. If you message me your details I can take a look for you.

[john davidson 1]

KC  The CAA informed me two weeks ago my reg had expired and I had to multi question test again ( I thought it was a one off), anyway forty questions  90 percent about drones so in the 

response I said I never flew drones and was unhappy about the questions

[GrumpyGnome]

23 hours ago, leccyflyer said:

Current rate of inflation is 5.6%, so rather less than the proposed increase in CAA Operator registration fee.

Happily corrected. Badly worded on my part as like anyone else, they will have been subject to the previously higher levels....

[Edgeflyer]

Oh for the old days when everything was simple and nothing worked. Now everything is complex and....nothing works!

Do you need an operator ID and a flyer ID for a stick and tissue rubber powered keilkraft kit? I can't imagine how we ever as 9 year olds would have got into model flying. What about paper aeroplanes are they legal?

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

1 hour ago, Edgeflyer said:

Oh for the old days when everything was simple and nothing worked. Now everything is complex and....nothing works!

Do you need an operator ID and a flyer ID for a stick and tissue rubber powered keilkraft kit? I can't imagine how we ever as 9 year olds would have got into model flying. What about paper aeroplanes are they legal?

Everything is actually still quite simple and generally works too.

[Edgeflyer]

If constantly having to update firmware and understand changes of protocols (cf Access /Accst/D8/D16 or DSM/DsM2/Dsmx etc ) is simple then I agree. 

[Edgeflyer]

All my early forays into control line models and home made single channel setups might have been tricky under current regs. 

[Andy Symons - BMFA]

53 minutes ago, Edgeflyer said:

All my early forays into control line models and home made single channel setups might have been tricky under current regs. 

Not at all, CL is pretty much exempt from all the regs as is everything under 250gm if it doesn't have a camera as long as you avoid FRZs

[ken anderson.]

2 hours ago, Andy Symons - BMFA said:

Everything is actually still quite simple and generally works too.

I'm still quite simple...beyond updating...🙂

 

Ken Anderson....ne...1...simple dept.

 

[GrumpyGnome]

8 hours ago, Edgeflyer said:

If constantly having to update firmware and understand changes of protocols (cf Access /Accst/D8/D16 or DSM/DsM2/Dsmx etc ) is simple then I agree. 

Eh, what? Don't think that's anything to do with CAA or BMFA......

[i12fly]

Simple? When I started flying radio control I had to have a licence renewed each year -can't remember how much it was but it wasn't cheap.

[Alan Gorham_]

Not only did you need to have a license for your radio kit, but you also had to send the renewal away in the post. Terrible bureaucracy in the bad old days... 

[Peter Jenkins]

On 28/11/2023 at 09:54, Edgeflyer said:

Oh for the old days when everything was simple and nothing worked. Now everything is complex and....nothing works!

Do you need an operator ID and a flyer ID for a stick and tissue rubber powered keilkraft kit? I can't imagine how we ever as 9 year olds would have got into model flying. What about paper aeroplanes are they legal?

I rather suspect that you've never read and understood the Article 16 details.  Even the simplified version makes all this clear. 

[Nigel Heather]

On 27/11/2023 at 09:28, MattyB said:

 

Their definition of "innovation" is all in the (yes, yet another... 😉) consultation document - get ready to be unimpressed...

 

A hell of a lot of words to bamboozle, or to put people off reading, which ultimately say nothing at all.

 

Please in plain English, and written concisely, what exactly are they going to do with this 3% that they are extorting.

 

My guess is to just pay the increased ATOS hosting invoice.

[Nigel Heather]

34 minutes ago, Nigel Heather said:

A hell of a lot of words to bamboozle, or to put people off reading, which ultimately say nothing at all.

 

Please in plain English, and written concisely, what exactly are they going to do with this 3% that they are extorting.

 

My guess is to just pay the increased ATOS hosting invoice.

 

Another reason why the ‘innovation’ rationale is complete BS is that 3% from each registered operator amounts to around £60k - anyone that has worked for large organisations will know that is peanuts and not enough to achieve anything.  If they were really doing ‘innovation’ they’d need to spend millions.

[RedBaron]

It is all rubbish and completely incomprehensible.

Just "Jobs for the CAA boys" paid out of out tax money

If all the new industries that want to monopolize our skies can't fit in with what exists then it does not say much for whatever "technology" they have

Every encroachment on our activities will only get worse.

There will be so much code dithering about in the skies that it will be even worse that W10 updates

A basic requirement of all these new industries should be that they prove their technology does what is required before they leave the ground for the first time.

 

Edited December 2, 2023 by RedBaron