The Science and Technology Committee holds its third evidence session on its Commercial and recreational drone use in the UK inquiry on Tuesday 9th July.  Watch it online at Parliament TV. Witnesses: At 9.30 am Gemma Alcock, Founder, SkyBound Rescuer Professor David Dunn, International Politics, University of Birmingham David Phipps, Chief Executive, British Model Flying Association  At 10.30 am Baroness Vere of Norbiton, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Depart...

BMFA members have been expressing their deep concern and criticism of the BBC Two documentary, ‘Britain’s Next Air Disaster? Drones?’, which sensationalised the potential risks from ‘drones’ and grossly mis-represented the entirely safe activities routinely undertaken by thousands of lawful ‘drone’ operators. The BMFA and other UK Associations acknowledge that unlawful operation of unmanned aircraft could potentially result in unacceptable conflict with manned aviation, but the risk shou...

We have this morning registered our concern with Martin Rolfe, the CEO of NATS regarding the comments made by their representative at the Select Committee evidence hearing which took place on the 26th June, where 'drone' operators were categorised as either 'clueless, careless or criminal'. We have received assurances that NATS would never categorise operators in the inappropriate manner described by their representative and they will be taking steps to make sure that the Select Committee under...

The EU regulations for Unmanned Aircraft were published in the Official Journal of the European Union on the 11th June and the Implementing Regulation will become applicable on 1st July, 2020. The CAA have recently published CAP1789 which provides a detailed guide to the EU regulations which you can find here: http://publicapps.caa.co.uk/docs/33/CAP1789%20EU%20UAS%20Regulations-Guidance.pdf CAP1789 includes a paragraph specifically relating to model aircraft which states: Additional provision...

The Science and Technology Committee will hold its second evidence session on its Commercial and recreational drone use in the UK inquiry on Wednesday 26th June. Watch it online at Parliament TV. Witnesses: At 9.30 am Captain Tim Pottage, Chairman of RPAS (Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems)     Working Group, British Airline Pilots Association Andy Sage, Head of Unmanned Traffic Management, National Air Traffic Services Special Sergeant Kevin Taylor, Chief Pilot, Lincolnshire Police Dro...

Representatives from the UK Model Flying Associations met with the Aviation Minister, Baroness Vere of Norbiton at the Department for Transport yesterday (Tuesday 5th June 2019). Whilst the meeting provided a good opportunity for both sides to clarify their position and understand each other’s priorities, there is little in the way of good news to report to our members. It was clear that the government sees the public order and security risk posed by unmanned aircraft as very serious, which i...

Representatives of the UK Model Flying Associations met with the CAA yesterday afternoon (29th May 2019). The meeting was constructive, but without any real breakthrough to report at this stage.  The CAA were only able to discuss potential options within the restrictive policy framework dictated by the DfT.  One such option is the possibility of the Associations registering as Operators, which would save members paying the £16.50 registration fee, but all members flying any model over 250g wou...

Updated list of Mandatory Questions. To take in to account recent changes to the regulations that affect the flying of model aircraft the list of Mandatory questions has been updated to reflect the changes. The new list is reproduced below and is also available to view on the achievement scheme website at https://achievements.bmfa.org/mandatory-questions the online quiz has also been updated to reflect the changes. See https://achievements.bmfa.org/quizzes/mandatory-questions-quiz All the sta...

Firebirds Model Flying Club club member and author of the much read BMFA New ‘Nostalgia Notebook’ feature, Roger Stanton passed away on May 29th this year. Roger was a proper ‘old school’ aeronautical modeller who told stories of how as a child, he saved up his pocket money, dreaming of the next model that he would be building. Many of his stories made it to a much wider audience via the pages of the BMFA News magazine, through which he made many friends and contacts. Roger’s love of avia...