Roundup: ARPAS-UK Annual Conference 2023

March 2023, DARTeC, Cranfield University

We had a great day, loved the talk by the coffee machine, can’t thank enough Cranfield University for hosting us at DARTeC and our Members who joined us in a day of drone related talks and conversations.

The video recordings and slide decks of each individual presentation are available, please follow the links below our chat.

CAA RPAS Unit at ARPAS-UK annual conference, March 2023

Graham Brown, Chairman, and Anne-Lise Scaillierez, CEO, shared an update on ARPAS-UK past activities; our priorities for 2023 following membership feedback: “Proportionate Regulations and Standards”, “Safe and Professional Adoption of drones by end-Users”, and “Conduit for future-facing issues“, as well as the set-up of a Regulation Special Interest Group REG SIG.

The presentation and Q&A with the GA&RPAS Unit at the CAA was certainly a highlight of the day. Thank you Kevin Woolsey, Co-Head, Mark Wharry, Safety & Oversight Senior Manager, and Callum Holland, Transformation Manager, for coming in person, and for your commitment to engaging better with the industry. It was welcome news. Our Members’ Regulation Special Interest Group, the REG SIG team, had prepared a list of top 10 priorities, and the CAA team’s presentation was designed in response to these 10 points (link below). We all know that there has been and are still challenges, our industry is growing and innovating at a fast pace. Regulations and the regulators are industry enablers, and we are keen to collaborate and help the industry move forward.

Thanks to Gordon Baker, Policy Lead at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, for providing an update on the newly created Department’s engagement with our sector of the market. It was exciting to hear more about the government’s commitment to robotics, and his insights on how to unlock the commercial drone opportunities.

We enjoyed content-rich presentations by Members, anchored in real-life operations and experience:

Great to hear how Mark Elliott, CEO of S4G Drone Services, transformed the engagement with an initially uncertain and concerned local council by demonstrating professionalism and demonstrating the value of the data collected and digital output. Your professionalism and positive attitude shone through in a highly engaging and informative presentation.

As ever, it was great to hear from Professor Graham Braithwaite, Director of Transport Systems at Cranfield University and the latest activities at DARTeC. Graham hit the nail on the head when he said the conversations over coffee were particularly pleasing to see and be part of. The connections made, questions explored, people meeting for the first time in person after only online contact – all this is so important to an industry that is so geographically disparate.

Even when Members can’t be there in person, they can contribute, as Andy Huggett and Chris Janes, Training Managers at Consortiq proved with their conversation about SORA. Andy and Chris explained the basics of the SORA methodology, how it can be a very powerful tool for complex operations, and how new PDRAs, possibly following SORA, could be a good way forward for the not-so-complex operations.

Alex Fraess-Ehrfeld, CEO of Airborne Robotics walked us through the approval process in Austria on a practical BVLOS flight operation to deliver a defibrillator, following the SORA methodology … Some of those timelines – 3 months from first consultation – definitely caught the eye! So did the advice to thoroughly prepare, chase those responses from the authority, and use simulation tools to facilitate the approval process.

We should mention that we had kicked off the event with the AGM element of the day’s proceedings, and voted on resolutions to enable hybrid General Meetings and Online Voting, as well as confirming Aleks Kowalski and Chris Daniels as Directors.

The last presentation of the day was from the ARPAS-UK team, Graham Brown, Chair, Anne-Lise Scaillierez, CEO, and Elena Major, Operations Manager. It was a whistle-stop tour of what we’ve been doing this last year, where we’ve been engaged on our Members’ behalf, opportunities taken and available. It presented a positive, forward looking vision for the industry working together for the benefit of Members and the wider industry.

Finally, thank you to all those who attended in person and online. We hope to see more of you next year in person, though appreciate it isn’t always possible. We always enjoying talking to Members, so please do contact us throughout the year, come to see us at conferences and exhibitions as well connect on LinkedIn.

For all recordings and presentations, follow the links below:

The Annual General Meeting presentation and resolutions submitted to vote can be found here.

The Annual Conference talks can be found here: