Res Communis

FARNBOROUGH: UK unpiloted air vehicles

by Sara M. Langston with the blog faculty

Source: Flightglobal

Players from the UK unmanned air vehicle industry will arrive at this year’s Farnborough air show with renewed optimism, following two significant steps recently made on the way towards being able to routinely fly such systems in the nation’s airspace.

On 1 July, a new area of airspace was opened near the Ministry of Defence’s Salisbury Plain training area in Wiltshire to support flights with the British Army’s Watchkeeper 450 tactical UAV system, before its planned deployment to Afghanistan in 2011.

The end result of a lengthy period of public consultation, the newly opened sector will enable the WK450 to be flown from the MoD’s Boscombe Down test facility, and from the army’s nearby Upavon site in support of exercises involving British ground troops…more