A really glorious job of nibbling away at details has led I imagine to the late launch of an Airprox report between a Police helicopter and USAF F-15 over Cambridgeshire.
Properly executed Ian Hudson and Mike Morgan, your persistent FOIA work has meant the reality that needed to be advised lastly was. In the event you click on both of their names you can begin ferreting round what they requested.
That is the incident that led to a number of areas of restricted airspace for drones over the UK on the request of USAF.
These restrictions have been put in place by the CAA with zero proof to help their necessity.
I’ve learn the incident report a number of occasions now and discover myself getting angrier and angrier that the CAA had the wool pulled over their eyes so comprehensively. The oldsters that made these choices on the CAA want investigating. They’ve price small drone companies within the UK cash and broken the popularity of the trade.
ARPAS (the supposed UK physique representing RPAS operators) will do nothing about this and proceed to solely serve the necessities of a handful of members.
We all know there’s video of the incident from the police helicopter that was being withheld for all types of causes, even from the BBC. Time for the discharge and correct reporting from the media that additionally fell for the official line. Time for the Police, CAA and DfT to begin telling the reality about Gatwick as effectively.
Some key strains from the report.
THE EC135 PILOT experiences that they’d flown at 1500ft in direction of Lakenheath ATZ, contacted Lakenheath Radar on 128.900MHz (the EC135 is just not UHF-equipped) and got a clearance into the zone at 1500ft. They weren’t knowledgeable of another site visitors within the zone and so they didn’t obtain any site visitors returns on their TCAS. They noticed pink flashing lights within the space of the Lakenheath ATZ (which, on the time, they believed have been drones) at a top in extra of 1500ft. [The pilot of the EC135 reported initially that] the ‘drones’ gave the impression to be finishing up giant orbits of Lakenheath airfield.
They vacated the zone, and had suggested ATC of their intentions to vacate the zone, after which climbed to estimate the peak of the ‘drones’.
After climbing to roughly 4000ft, they began heading east in direction of Bury St Edmunds, monitoring a
‘drone’ which was to the north of them at a barely higher altitude. A number of transmissions have been made
to ATC to clarify what they have been doing in addition to what the ‘drones’ have been doing. As soon as they began
heading in a westerly course (now
It was evident from reviewing the radar recordings that the police helicopter pilot was doubtless reporting,
and reacting to, exercise of the F15s that have been working within the space. It seems that, on the time, the
ATC employees and the pilots concerned had not recognised this as a chance. The recording reveals no
main tracks within the neighborhood of the police helicopter while below a service from Lakenheath. All
plane below a service from Lakenheath on the time have been noticed and recorded to be squawking
Modes A and C.
One other bit
Nonetheless, some members puzzled why the Lakenheath Strategy controller had not concluded that the a number of calls made by the EC135 pilot concerning ‘drones’ within the space could have been of significance to their very own situational consciousness. As such, it was advised that there had been a chance to have responded with phrases to the impact of “nothing seen on radar” or to have handed Site visitors Data on the F15 or, certainly, to have handed Site visitors Data to the pilot of the F15 on a potential drone sighting. Some members puzzled whether or not the ATC employees’s response to an ‘uncommon incidence’ had impacted their situational consciousness of the site visitors scenario.
We should at all times communicate fact to energy.
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