Drone guidance consultation

Voiceover 0:09

Bringing you the latest drone guidance and updates. This is CAA Drone Safety.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 0:21

So hello, everybody and welcome back to drone podcast from the Civil Aviation Authority. My name is Jonathan Nicholson from the CAA communications team. And I'm very happy to say we're joined again by Callum Holland from the RPAS team Hi, Callum.

Callum Holland (CAA) 0:33

Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for having me again.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 0:35

Good to have you. We have another consultation to talk about, don't we?

Callum Holland (CAA) 0:38

We do. We promised it wasn't going to be long!

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 0:44

And we've pumped it out. So this is a big one. This is one for a lot of people. So in a nutshell, Callum, what's this one about?

Callum Holland (CAA) 0:53

So this is a consultation on our proposed acceptable means and compliance and guidance material to the UAS implementing regulation. And that's essentially in a nutshell, what it covers.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 1:06

Okay, so, for some people that will be 'Yeah, I know all about that. I know those acronyms that Callum has just spouted out there and I know what they are'. For everybody else. What's the structure of the legislation? What is GMC, what's AMC? How does it fit together?

Callum Holland (CAA) 1:22

Absolutely, I think it's really important to take note that we appreciate that the regulatory framework of which UAS sits under spans from Open all the way to Certified. And there's a large breadth of experience and expertise sits within that. So this isn't intended to confuse anybody, I appreciate at the same time, there's probably a granularity to the detail that for many might be too in depth or not strictly required level of knowledge. But I think it's good just to frame it provide all of the context, and then people can take from that what they will. So the regulatory framework that we sit under today starts with the basic regulation. And that's the BR20 18-11 39, for anybody that's interested. And that sets out the primary pillars of what it is that must be done from a legislative standpoint. And that's supported primarily by two further pieces of regulation, the implementing regulation of which I'm sure many of the listeners have heard of 20 19 9 47 and the delegated regulation 20 19 94 5. And those two pieces of regulation sit below the basic regulation. Now, what we have a duty to do as a civil aviation authority is provide acceptable means of compliance and guidance material to the implementing regulation. And I appreciate many listeners, perhaps have never heard of AMC GM, acceptable means of compliance and guidance material. So I'll just give a quick introduction of what it is in general, but it's actually a general term, it's not specific to RPAS.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 2:55

I think it's probably worth saying, isn't it that if you're around aviation, and you're working with this and other things, AMC GMC, they're useful things to know, because they're across the board

Callum Holland (CAA) 3:05

Exactly that and if any listeners do have experience of either commercial or general aviation, they have undoubtedly heard of acceptable means of compliance and guidance material. So in general, AMC (Acceptable Means of Compliance) is non binding policy developed by the CAA that can be used to demonstrate compliance with the basic regulation, and its implementing rules. As it's non binding, this is a really important point, the applicant may choose to offer an alternative means of compliance, you don't have to follow this. But if you propose an alternative means of compliance against a particular article of the implementing regulation. First of all, it must be reviewed and accepted by the CAA. But perhaps more importantly, if you don't follow the acceptable means of compliance, you lose the presumption of compliance provided by our AMC. So our AMC is an interpretation of the IR, we've created what we believe to be acceptable means of compliance against the articles within the IR, you're welcome to follow them. There's a presumption of compliance if you do, you're welcome to propose a differing acceptable means of compliance. But you lose that presumption. And obviously with that loss of presumption its likely to result in significantly longer application processing times, and in turn cost. Now guidance material, it's also non binding, but it provides an explanatory and interpretation to the articles. So whereas we fully appreciate that legislation, is written in a way that's perhaps not immediately obvious, how you must interpret it, we've done that for you. We've interpreted the regulation, and we've provided guidance material on that interpretation. And that's kind of the crux of it. That's what AMC and GM is it's there to assist the applicant. Now when, we're talking about AMC GM specifically pertaining to the implementing regulation 20 19 94 7, it pertains to the articles, the individual articles within the IR, the AMC and GM that we are consulting on AMC, GM follows a very similar structure to the regulations itself. In as far as it will go article by article, I think what we'll see and what the reader will notice as well as they begin to read and digest the proposed draft AMC GM document is that a lot of what's contained within this AMC GM will be familiar to what they've read in the CAP 722 series. And broadly, the AMC GM will replace a significant proportion of what's currently contained within the CAP 722 series. And there's lots of reasons why we'd want to do that. First of all, it's a requirement, but it provides a more formal legal structure to our policy that doesn't currently exist within the CAP series.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 6:01

Okay, yeah, that makes absolute sense. So it's guidance, helping people doing a lot of what CAP722 does at the moment. Now, I know a lot of the people that use CAP722 at the moment are approved operators. So is this primarily for people with an approval that go beyond open cat sort of flying? Or is this for everybody? Do we need everybody to be looking at this at some level?

Callum Holland (CAA) 6:26

Yeah, it's a really good question. The answer is it affects everybody, including operators in the Open and Specific categories, irrespective of whether or not you're flying recreationally or commercially. The way that the AMC GM is set out is it finds AMC GM to each article, also pointed out within the document itself is if it's pertains to an Open category, AMC or GM, or Specific category, so when you're reading the documentation, what you'll see is some letters and numbers dot open, and some letters, numbers dot spec. So if you're wondering, perhaps I haven't got time to read the whole thing, or how do I point out what's specifically relevant to me? Well, if you only operate in the Open category, look for where it says dot open. If you operate in a Specific category, look where it says dot spec,

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 7:16

That makes absolute sense. Now, obviously, if you've got the time, look at look at the whole thing, because you never know what you're going to be doing in the future, you might be flying Open cat now. And in a year's time, you might be doing something different. So worth paying attention and having a look. And obviously, it goes without saying we want as many people to respond as possible, especially after the great response from our previous consultation. And we do listen.

Callum Holland (CAA) 7:40

Yes, yes.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 7:42

As we showed,

Callum Holland (CAA) 7:44

Absolutely, I think the important takeaway from all of this is is not only is it right and proper, that the public has an opportunity to voice their opinion on matters that could affect them. And the AMC GM, if you operate UAS in the UK, it will affect you. So it's right and proper that you have an opportunity to voice your views on that. But going a step further than that. And I think recognizing that the breadth of experience and expertise within the community within industry, across all operators, recreational, commercial, open, specific, they have a larger breadth of experience and expertise than contained within the CAA alone. We are specialists in our particular areas. But we also appreciate that there's lots of other people out there within industry that are equally qualified to provide input on this.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 8:35

Absolutely. We want as many people as possible. And that obviously leads on to another question as well, that we've kind of hinted that this is a little bit more involved than the previous consultation, there's a lot more to read, there's a lot more in it, if you like. So we've said we want people to look at everything and as much as they can. But if you were to highlight a few things for people that you wanted to point their attention towards as being something we're really keen or something we really think they should look at what what would those bits be?

Callum Holland (CAA) 9:07

Great question because I appreciate you know, not everybody has the benefit of unlimited time. If I was going to direct somebody who perhaps didn't have the benefit of copious amounts of times to where they should look, it really is dependent on what the individual is particularly interested in. The first port of call would be if you're primarily flying in open or specific cat, then look for the dot open or dot spec. If you wanted to go into sort of a finer brain of detail, you can open up the IR look at the articles. Say you have particular interest in let's take article seven rules and procedures for the operation of UAS. Find the corresponding AMC GM to Article Seven and provide input on that.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA) 9:48

Yeah, that makes sense. So if you're doing a particular type of operation, you know the rules already. So which one and then go and look at the supporting stuff?

Callum Holland (CAA) 9:57

Yeah, and I think the key takeaway here if time is not your friend Ctrl F probably is.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 10:03

Search that Doc. Okay, that makes absolute sense. Thank you. So previously, obviously, we took EASA's rules put them into UK legislation when we left the European Union and EASA, is there therefore now a chance that when we make a decisions about at the end of the consultation, that we then start to diverge from what EASA has? And if we do, will that have an impact on any users that operate within EASA land if you like, as well as the UK?

Callum Holland (CAA): 10:36

Yeah, it's a really good question. Fundamentally, it comes down to the UK and the EU frameworks are different. They are not the same regulatory framework. Because of how we came about our existing regulatory framework it is today broadly similar to EASA. Now, as time goes on, I think that we will see some natural divergences that's not for any particular reason other than that, the development of the regulation is now being done within the United Kingdom for the UK. And the development within the EU is being done by EASA. So you've got to separate organizations that are developing their own pieces of regulation. So we're gonna see some natural divergence, my input to operators that perhaps fly in the UK and Europe, is, you're likely doing the right thing already, you have a separate application process that if you want to fly in Europe, and you have the process, if you want to fly in the United Kingdom, this doesn't make that process more complicated, but at the same time, it doesn't pull things closer.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 11:39

Yeah, that makes absolute sense. And, you know, if we've got the opportunity to make something work better for UK users, then we'd be strange not to take up on that.

Callum Holland (CAA): 11:50

I think that's an advantage of the position we're in. And why consultations are so important now is that there is an opportunity to shape the regulation, policy, AMC and guidance material to suit the UK operator, the best fit for the UK types of operations and the risk profile that exists within the United Kingdom, which I think is probably a positive takeaway from all of this.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 12:18

Yeah, absolutely. I think that makes sense. So usual message, then we're looking for people to respond, we need people's views, we need people's input, what's the closing date for responses, and then what's the process after that,

Callum Holland (CAA): 12:32

So we're going to run the consultation for eight weeks, that's two weeks longer than we ran the last one. And that's just out of appreciation for the length of the document. It's a relatively sizable document. And we appreciate everybody can't drop what they're currently doing to suddenly provide a response on the weekend, so it's gonna run for eight weeks. That means that it will close on the 31 of August. Now, throughout the consultation, we are able to see responses as they come in. So it's not as if we only get viewership of the responses on the first of September, we will continuously over the next eight weeks review the responses as they come in, that will shape our opinion, it might change the AMC GM in some way. And we'll continue to do that. Once a consultation closes, we'll ensure that every respondents opinion has been taken on board, we will then as soon as we reasonably can issue a consultation response document. Now, it's not going to follow the same structure as our previous one where in the response document, we told you what our opinion to the DfT was, because this is a AMC GM it's for the CAA to adopt. So this doesn't have to go through the DfT, government, parliament. What we need to do is take on board the responses and see if that means we have to change the draft document that we originally consulted on. So what we intend to do in the response document is very much like we did in the previous one, give the community a flavour of the type of responses we had, what topics they focused on, and perhaps how that's shaped and morphed our own opinion internally.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 12:56

Yeah, you get an update, and then you get the more.

Callum Holland (CAA): 14:11

Yeah. And I think as you read the AMC GM the draft document as part of the consultation, you're likely to notice a couple of divergences between what's in that draft document and what's reflected in certain parts of the CAP722 series. One of the things we have to do when we formally adopt a AMC GM after the consultation and after we've ensured that everyone's opinion has been taken on board is do an exercise in parallel, where we update the CAP722 series to ensure that it's accurately reflected what's within the AMC GM, and there's nothing conflicting in that. So that's just a point to make because I imagine if I don't say that we may get some questions on it. We appreciate that in the draft version of AMC GM, there are some divergences Within it within our draft proposed AMC GM compared to some aspects of the current CAP722 series.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 15:06

And it's going to be a bit of a journey as those things all get updated and go along in sequence, if you like. That's brilliant. Thanks for that Callum. So if anybody wants to respond, then all the links will be in the episode descriptions below. But if there's ever a consultation from the CAA that you want to see and respond to, it will always be on our consultation portal, which is online at consultations.caa.co.uk. So any consultation from the CIA will be there if it's live. As usual. If there's anything you'd like to respond to on this podcast, or give us some suggestions for other things to cover, then please drop us an email. It's dronepodcast@caa.co.uk. So thank you to Callum. I'm sure you'll be back won't you? when when we've got all the responses in and you've had a good chance to ever read, we can come back and give an update

Callum Holland (CAA): 15:57

Yes, we're going to do a bit of an end of week one evaluation of the initial responses. I think this is important to point out to see if we can sort of identify any common themes in terms of if there's any sort of misunderstanding, is there any further guidance we can provide around the consultation? Because we appreciate this isn't as straightforward as the last consultation was. So we'll do a bit of a end of week one review. And if we think that there's some comms, we need to put out off the back of that, then we will.

Jonathan Nicholson (CAA): 16:22

Brilliant, thank you. Yeah. And then we'll come back and talk again when you've read them all. Hopefully thousands of them. You grimaced a bit then didn't you? Lots of reading to do! But all good value to help into the discussion. So thank you, Callum. Thank you everybody for listening and fly safe and we will see you again next time. Thank you very much, everybody.

Voiceover: 16:44

Thanks for listening. This is CAA drone safety.