Why does UK CAA continue to use the technically incorrect term "Drone"?

[TCAS FAN]

Despite specifically being advised against it by ICAO, and thereby not an ICAO recognised term, why does the UK persist in using the term "Drone? Possibly having lead down the path by EASA, which UK no longer subscribes to, why does it not revert to the technically correct and ICAO/CAA defined Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), or the abbreviation UA when referring to the aircraft element?

The term Drone is not defined in UK CAP 1430, whereas UAS is.

Is it a case of the technically incompetent in CAA/DfT have ruled to dig us the progressivley deeper Done rabbit hole from which they are now too deep into to extricate the country from?

What next 24/7 being adopted to replace the ICAO standard H24? Or maybe LOL when they next publish a corrected version of a document that they had published a few hours before?,

[TheOddOne]

Actually, UAS is also wrong, in my opinion. RPA is better (Remotely Piloted Aircraft). It's the 'unmanned' bit I object to. There's a general trend away from UAS to RPA and RPAS. ICAO need to catch up.

The 'General Public' have a perception of what a 'drone' looks like and behaves like, although it seems impossible technically to distinguish between a DJI Mavic 2 and my 5th scale, home built Radio Controlled Tiger Moth. The rules for both have become entwined, to the great detriment of the second largest users of airspace in the UK, namely aeromodellers. The largest group? Of course, passengers in public transport aircraft.

TOO

[biscuit74]

I agree, The Odd One. Seems very strange that they can't find a simple legally acceptable way to distinguish between our model aircraft and RPS/UAS machines.

As you say, we are the largest active group of airspace users - since passengers are not active participants in any sense, The next largest group I suspect would be the LAA and other light aircraft users, then the gliding community ,then airline & other commercial pilots .

[Maoraigh1]

"Actually, UAS is also wrong, in my opinion. RPA is better (Remotely Piloted Aircraft)."
What about flight on preprogrammed track, BVLOS? Not piloted.
Maybe something like "XTZ" would save arguments about meaning, at least for the English language.

[BEagle]

'Drone' is the term adopted by EASA. It is a noun rather than yet another collection of letters - RPV, RPAS, UAS or whatever. It is the correct term; for some reason people seem to think it's derogatory, but really it isn't.

[Fl1ingfrog]

Having done a little research: I discovered that the term 'Drone' is very much British and goes back many centuries in England. The male bee was nicknamed a Drone as early as the 17th century and we still refer to the sound of 'droning' coming from bees. Back in 1883 a kite was rigged with a camera and can probable be called the first ever Drone. Later in the 1930s a British DH82 82B was developed as a unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) for the Royal Navy and was the first unmanned aircraft used for aerial survey and also known as Drone. The U.S. navy went on to develop their own UAV types but also calling them Drones. EASA didn't originate the term but obviously adopted it more recently.

I seems to me to be perfectly proper to continue to use the generic term Drone but perhaps also subtitled specifically to indicate a particular type or purpose: remote controlled, pre-programmed and whether it is used for freight, survey or warfare. So DRONE gets my vote and keeps it simple.