Bartons Point MFC: April 2019

Tuesday 30 April 2019

Friday 26 April 2019

Afternoon,

As you may have already seen, earlier today the CAA released their consultation on the charges for their upcoming drone registration scheme.

https://consultations.caa.co.uk/finance/drone-registration/

This registration scheme is currently proposed to apply to all of us who fly model aircraft, as well as recreational and commercial drone operators.

That means every single person who wants to fly a model aircraft in the UK (including every LMA, BMFA, SAA, FPVUK member) will, before the end of November 2019, have to-

Register themselves on the government website
- Pay £16.50 for the privilege of registering
- Renew registration and pay £16.50 every year
Pass an online test of theoretical competence on the government website (for free)

Please read the consultation in the above link, and please respond to the consultation. Again, to be clear, we need your help to communicate how popular this will be with the UK’s modellers, so PLEASE RESPOND TO THE CONSULTATION. I will be responding formally on behalf of the LMA as well as working with the BMFA, SAA & FPV UK to meet with the DfT and the CAA and apply political pressure via the APPG for GA and other routes to get the best possible result for modellers. We need your support though in the form of weight of numbers responding to the consultation.

I met yesterday with the developers of the system in Gatwick, and the proposed system is quite straightforward to use, if a bit expensive to use! They are however only providing what the CAA & DfT have asked for.

If you have any questions, please ask. I do however know it is overkill, the charge is completely excessive, only the law abiding will comply with it, it will be widely ignored, especially by anyone upto no good and it is a ‘seen to be doing something’ knee jerk reaction to the perceived ‘drone menace’ that lives in some influential people’s heads.

Based on the predicted numbers or registrants, modellers will be approximately 25% of the numbers, so PLEASE RESPOND TO THE CONSULTATION to make modellers the largest group making their views known on the questions in the consultation-

a) What is your view on the CAA’s proposed charge, in terms of the level and structure of the charge?
b) Do you have alternative ideas about how the CAA could cover the costs of running the registration scheme?
c) Are the CAA’s estimated volumes appropriate for the make-up of drone operators in the UK, based on existing sources of data and your own observations?

Best Regards

Rob Buckley Secretary - Large Model Association
s ecretary @largemodelassociation.com

Concern's you.

Bmfa.

Following the recent sudden announcement of Flight Restriction Zones around protected aerodromes capturing the operation of all unmanned aircraft of any weight and at any height (and the unreasonable three week notice period given for our clubs and members to comply), the CAA have dropped yet another bombshell on us with no prior warning.

They have today published a consultation (CAP1775) on their proposed charges for the registration of all operators of unmanned aircraft – which includes all of our members. The fee the CAA is proposing is £16.50 per annum which is significantly more than the cost levied on model flyers in any other EASA country, something they have conveniently omitted from the comparison figures in the document. An interesting direct comparison not included is France where their equivalent registration scheme is completely free and valid for five years.

It is accepted that the EASA regulations do mandate the registration of all operators of unmanned aircraft (including model flyers) in their country of residence, but also state that in terms of model flying ‘Associations may register their members into the registration system on their behalf’ which the CAA have made excessively onerous and also completely disregarded in their consultation document.

There are some significant costs associated with the ongoing upkeep of the CAA registration system which they are expecting you to pay for. We believe that their figures for the number of users registering in the system are also somewhat ‘optimistic’ and the consequence of fewer users could be even higher costs. The BMFA did offer to make its new membership system available to the CAA at cost, but didn’t receive any response!

We believe that the proposals will be detrimental to the future of model flying in the UK and place requirements on us which are more excessive than those for manned aviation – despite the DfT/CAA acknowledging that model flying has established an excellent record over the last century. Even in France where the registration scheme is free, the model flying community has already reduced by 10%.

The UK Model Flying Associations are strongly opposed to the CAA’s proposals and believe that they represent the worst excesses of ‘gold plating’ of regulations (something which the CAA are committed to avoid). We would strongly encourage all members to respond to the consultation and register their concerns without delay (please encourage your club mates to do the same) before the UK Government/CAA destroy model flying in the UK.

The UK Model Flying Associations will continue to work with the CAA & DfT and bring political pressure to bear to try and minimise the impact of excessive regulation on our members, but we need your support to show the strength of feeling, so please respond to the consultation.

Full details of the consultation and how to respond can be found here: https://consultations.caa.co.uk/finance/drone-registration/

The consultation will close on 7 June 2019.

Rapid rc

Hi all,
Just a quick message to let you all know that we are going to be posting on here with what we are doing at rapid, what models/products we have and any new items that we are getting in.

Robin Stuart.