Making drone safety information accessible to all

We’ve talked before about the opportunities and challenges that the growth in drone use presents. A new report released this week by SESAR and endorsed by the European Commission attempts to quantify the benefits and suggests the drone market place could generate in excess of EUR 10 billion value annually, in nominal terms, by 2035 and over EUR 15 billion annually by 2050.

Undoubtedly one of the most important challenges is improving awareness and understanding amongst drone users of what they need to do to ensure the safety of others using the UK’s busy airspace.

New consumer research published today by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) reinforces this; it shows that less than 40% of drone users are aware of the CAA’s ‘Dronecode’, which outlines the basic rules for flying drones in the UK.

The consumer research also reveals that while 69% of owners thought retailers were responsible for drone safety education at point of sale, only 36% were made aware of the Dronecode when they bought a drone, showing a clear gap between consumer expectation and experience.

To try and help address this we’ve been working closely with the CAA and with retailers to see how, together, we can help improve access to drone safety information at the point of sale.

We’re also trying to make it easier for people to access information about drone safety. To this end we’ve today launched a new website in partnership with the CAA, which brings together safety information previously split around different areas of both the NATS and CAA websites.

Drone Safe Web site

Dronesafe.uk provides easy access to the CAA’s Dronecode and a list of organisations including NATS which provide drone training courses, as well as links to other useful resources such as the form you need to fill in for requesting permission to fly in controlled airspace.

Drones are big news and getting bigger, and we want to help this industry to flourish safely alongside manned aviation. We hope that Dronesafe.uk will contribute to that by helping today’s drone users to ensure they’re flying their drone safely, so please check it out and share it with all of your friends and family, particularly those who own a drone or have it on someone’s Christmas wish list!

We’ll have more news for you as we enter prime drone-buying season so watch this space and at nats.aero in the coming weeks.