An enlightening meeting for me, in that l was surprised by the way that Apian had approached the task. Surely they would have been better informed by starting with visits to the affected sites before coming up with the proposed TDA.
Agreed - when asked about this they waffled that this is they way the CAA say they have to do it (create a proposal and then consult), but surely you can take informal soundings beforehand to work out whats achievable. Five minutes looking at a map with anybody local would have highlighted the issues.
I found myself wondering if the aviation side being led by ex military ATC folk showed a lack of understanding of the implications for GA.
Yes - can they not read a map?! The first thing you think of is how do you get north-south
What l also found telling ,was that one of the attendees who was a commercial drone operator seemed to be able to carry out his work without massive disruption to other airspace users. I also wondered if the Americans who were present had a real depth of understanding of the UK,s environment both operationally and practically.
What surprised me was the number of Americans!
There seemed to me, a major problem with the way that the CAAs oversight of the project would be controlled, anyone with experience knows that the Notam system is both unwieldily and impractical to use in so many ways and dealing with the Authority can be challenging at the best of times!
They fully understand the Notams issue - there was a split between the medical and aviation side which they tried to fudge i.e. Notams requiring 24 hrs notice (at least?) where as the medical side were talking about 'just-in time' urgent deliveries
Another major concern for the general public was the inability of the project leaders to quantify the actual costs of the project. There was lots of talk about the need to use taxis for urgent deliveries and how costly that was but l cannot believe that drones and the significant team to operate them 24/7 would provide a more effective solution.
Think they were talking about 7-8 drones with at least one individual for each? If you look at the number of expected flights in the proposal, this looks right.