Public Funding for Aerofirm Ltd

All drone operators, from current Operational Authorisations all the way to complex BVLOS unsegregated operations have to write a safety case. The majority of tools currently being used or suggested by industry or a regulator, will, in isolation, not have any effect on delivering a £48bn industry as ultimately it is the operator who has to make a safety case to the regulator. Yet the knowledge to develop the safety arguments for BVLOS drone operations in the future is a key skill lacking across the industry, where the biggest success revolves around being able to put together a Temporary Danger Area (TDA) but hasn't progressed beyond that to any permanent scalable solutions. Manned aviation is judged against extant policies and procedures so the current knowledge within industry to break new ground and deliver a robust argument to the regulator rather than wait to be told what to do is very limited. In short there is a lack of confidence the UK industry knows how to solve the problem, evident by the Future of Flight and multiplicity of ideas. The skill set therefore, to develop a safety case for BVLOS is not something that is natively possessed by any part of the aviation spectrum and needs to be trained. ARPAS-UK, the drone trade association will provide, through the auspice of Aerofirm - a BVLOS safety case training course that not only provides the tools needs to achieve exactly this, but develops a mindset which needs to be embodied in any current and future organisation, as the responsibility of the operation is not just in the hands of the author but of all the staff in a company and pull the UK drone industry back to the front of the queue, bringing jobs, investment and unlocking the skies. There is a gap of personnel who can support these complex arguments, very few in the pipeline, and thus zero capability in the UK as it stands. ARPAS and Aerofirm recognise this needs to be filled, otherwise the current process of entities asking the regulator what the solution is, because of their own lack of how to put forward the correct approach to making the correct argument will continue.