On 20th February, the UK CAA formally announced that the United Kingdom Government published an amendment to the UK Air Navigation Order 2016 (ANO) which contains its changes to the legislation regarding the operation of small unmanned aircraft.
You can check out a video which explains the main changes by clicking the image below...
The amendment is published as Statutory Instrument (SI) 2019 No. 261 entitled ‘The Air Navigation (Amendment) Order 2019’. This can be found at: www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/261/made.
The CAA have also published the CAP 1763 which covers the small unmanned aircraft related articles within the Air Navigation Order that will remain relevant after the 13 March 2019 amendment. It provides readers with an outline of the revised regulations as they now appear in law, provides guidance on the cumulative effects of the two recent changes, and how they will be interpreted by the CAA. It replaces CAP 1687 which was published in 2018.
The amendment comes into force on 13 March 2019.
Please be aware that UAS applications received to the CAA after 12/03/19 may be placed on hold or rejected if they do not reflect the latest amendment to the Air Navigation Order (ANO).
So, before you make an application or renewal, please ensure that your CAA Drone Operations Manual has been updated and meets the requirements set out.
Key changes:
- ANO changes for small UAS (20kg or less)
- Revised limitations on the distance that SUAs of any mass may be flown from protected aerodromes
- Changes to the dimensions of the ‘Flight Restriction Zones’ around protected aerodromes
- Operations Manual changes
- Article 94 removal of paragraphs (4) and (4A)
- Articles 94A & 94B completely rewritten
Further changes and items to be aware of when updating your CAA Drone Operations Manual
If you have not updated your CAA Drone Operations Manual for some time, there are a few items you should be aware of and check in your Manual.
Terminology Changes:
- You will need to replace any instance of ‘Pilot in Command’ or ‘PiC’, with ‘Remote Pilot’ or ‘RP’.
- For more information about this you can find it in detail in the CAP 1763, to ensure you understand the changes.
- The ‘Accountable Manager’ needs to be changed to the ‘SUA Operator’ (except for the ‘Signature’, which should read ‘Accountable Manager/SUA Operator’).
Definitions:
- Insert definitions for SUA Operator and Remote Pilot into your OM.
- Ensure that you update and abbreviations table you have, to include RP.
Document Contents:
- Ensure Version Number is correct.
- Ensure Date is correct.
- Ensure Amendments Table is up-to date (including this update) and double check version number shown on the CAA Drone Operations Manual.
- Ensure a signature is added to the CAA Drone Operations Manual before submission (this must be a 'wet' digital/scanned signature - a ‘basic’ font is not acceptable).
- Ensure Table of Contents is up to date.
- Ensure ‘ECCAIRS’ is mentioned in the document as part of the reporting procedure(s).
- Ensure that Articles 94, 94(A), 94(B) & 94(G) are inserted in full with the new 2019 wording, into the document (C, D, E & F do not need to be included until November 2019).
- Ensure Article 95 is included in full.
- Ensure that any referenced documents are up to date. The latest versions at the time of writing as of 1st March 2019 are as follows:
- CAP 382 - Issue 10 - December 2016
- CAP 393 - Version 5.4 - 28 September 2018
- SI 2018/623 - 24 March 2018
- SI 2019/261 - 13 March 2019
- CAP 722 - 6th Edition - 24 March 2015
- Ensure Insurance Policy details are up to date.
- Ensure SUA / Drone Details are up to date.
- Ensure Latest versions of any referenced SUA Manuals are used throughout
If you are struggling with updating your Operations Manual, we offer an audit and update service in partnership with Open Sky Consulting.
https://www.flyicarus.co.uk/professional-services
