Drones Over Britain
August 30th, 2012Via: BBC:
This year the US Congress passed legislation giving US airspace regulator the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) until September 2015 to open up its airspace to drones, and Britain is expected to follow suit.
The UK’s airspace regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), has told BBC Newsnight that large unmanned drones could be flying in British skies by the end of the decade.
The CAA has already handed out 120 permits to fly small, lightweight drones. By 2020 this may be extended to larger unmanned aircraft.
“In aviation terms you can probably equate where we are with unmanned technology now to manned flight in 1918 or the early 1920s,” Gerry Corbett at the CAA said.
“We’ve found them useful in war fighting and we can see the way ahead for commercial use.”
Large defence companies and small start-up firms are investing heavily in what many think could soon be a market worth tens of billions of pounds.
To date the development of unmanned aircraft has been driven by the huge increase in military spending in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
Now the sensors and cameras used in drones are cheap enough for a whole raft of civilian applications to be possible.
Research Credit: cr
NZ Police think they’re a good idea too… http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/7582496/Police-mull-eyes-in-the-sky
Although best of luck for using them in Wellington… they’d all get blown out to sea.