FW: BHPA engagement re CAELUS2 BVLOS RPAS proposal in Ayrshire & Arran area
David Bichan
From: Mark Shaw
Sent: 27 September 2023 15:07
To: Caelus Airspace
Cc: Andy Mcdonald
Subject: Re: BHPA engagement re CAELUS2 BVLOS RPAS proposal in Ayrshire & Arran area
Dear Alex
Thank you for your email.
Your information has been supplied to various BHPA clubs. These clubs (https://www.bhpa.co.uk/clubs/) operate from sites that may fall within the areas covered by your ACP (or future proposals).
These clubs include (but are not limited to):
Lanarkshire and Lothian Soaring Club
Flying Fever
Cloudbusters
Wingbeat
Aberdeen HG and PG Club
Highland HG and PG Club
Scottish Hang Gliding Club
Scottish Mountain Paragliding Club
As previously informed, hang gliders, paragliders and their powered variants usually fly outside controlled airspace and maybe anywhere found from surface to cloudbase, singly or in gaggles of multiple aircraft.
Pilots of our unpowered aircraft take advantage of allowances in UK SERA allowing a glider to hill soar closer than 500ft to persons, vehicles, vessels and structures.
Paragliders and hang gliders are open cockpit do not carry EC devices. Separation is maintained using ‘see and avoid’ as the primary deconfliction method. Given the low speed that hang gliders and paragliders fly at, they have a relative lack of manoeuvrability in a deconfliction with a faster moving powered aircraft, for example a BVLOS drone.
For your information I enclose a link to the BHPA EC position paper: https://www.bhpa.co.uk/documents/members/index.php?doc=BHPA_EC_Position.pdf
Kind regards
Mark
Mark Shaw
BHPA Senior Technical Officer
British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association (BHPA)
8 Merus Court, Meridian Business Park, Leicester, LE19 1RJ, England
Tel: 0116 289 4316
Fax: 0116 281 4949
British Hang Gliding and Paragliding Association Limited.
A company limited by guarantee and registered in England no 2618166
Registered office: 340 Melton Road, Leicester, LE4 7SL
On 27 Sep 2023, at 10:13, Caelus Airspace <caelus2...@traxinternational.co.uk> wrote:
Hello,
We would like to kindly follow up re our request for engagement below. Please note the deadline of this Sunday October 1st if you would like to submit a response.
Best wishes,
Alex
From: Caelus Airspace <caelus2...@traxinternational.co.uk>
Date: Monday, 18 September 2023 at 12:14
To: mark...@bhpa.co.uk <mark...@bhpa.co.uk>, Andy Mcdonald <andy-m...@bhpa.co.uk>
Subject: Re: BHPA engagement re CAELUS2 BVLOS RPAS proposal in Ayrshire & Arran areaDear Mark and Andy,
You are receiving this email because you or your organisation was previously invited to engage regarding Beyond Visual Line of Sight drone flights and associated with temporary Airspace Change Proposal ACP-2022-103 planned as part of CAELUS2 Future Flight Challenge project. The flight route the attached pack refers to has two legs, which connect a) University Hospital Crosshouse with the Arran War Memorial Hospital b) University Hospital Crosshouse with University Hospital Ayr.
We have revised our proposal further and would like to update you and seek feedback on the proposed changes. Even though we consider the changes minor and some are beneficial for the stakeholders, we want to ensure there are no changes from your side that would make our revised proposal not feasible. The three key updates relate to a) period of operations b) the airspace coordinates for both the TDA and TSA elements c) Provision of Danger Area Crossing Service (DACS).
A) Given the requirements for various approvals (not just this ACP), we have experienced delays which mean these flights will no longer happen in 2023. We are still looking only for 4 consecutive weeks of flying, but we would like to ask for any relevant feedback if those 4 weeks are to occur at some point between January and July 2024. Our target date window of opportunity is in January-February, but we would like to get as complete feedback picture as possible should any further unexpected delays occur.
B) The shape and segmentation of the airspace broadly remained the same, however it was redrawn in order to align more neatly with the existing permanent airspace structures to incorporate both the TDA and TSA sections.
C) We have confirmed an agreement in principle with Prestwick Airport to provide DACS to aircraft, however, the regulatory part of arranging that and exact procedures is currently work in progress.
We will continue to update relevant information on the UK CAA portal as soon as it is known to us. Meanwhile, we would like to kindly ask to review the attached PDF pack in full and get back to us by replying to this email (caelus2...@traxinternational.co.uk) no later than Sunday 1st of October 2023 to ensure we have enough time to address any concerns that might arise.
Kind regards,
Alex and Lucy on behalf of CAELUS