Eyeup celebrates a small step forward in the drive for better regulation.
Apologies for a bit of trumpet blowing here at Eyeup Towers. But it was great last week to be credited with creating sufficient social media buzz that the CAA was persuaded to take action and carry out an immediate review of a brand new document.
CAP 2606 v1 is now CAP 2606 v2.
CAP 2606 is the CAA’s attempt at a manual for Specific Category operators to follow when they apply for a new PDRA01 Operational Authorisation or renew the same.
It was slipped out quietly as a “soft launch” on 3rd April. There was no release via SkyWise as the CAA was doing a little “bedding in” of the new DiSCO system, and they also wanted to launch it formally in tandem with CAP 722H version 3.
Eyeup’s founder Graham was all over CAP 2606 like a rash and soon found a number of errors, some of which could have existential impacts on anybody using the new template as a basis for the operations manual. Indeed, some “favoured” organisations had already received an early release, has created new manuals but had failed to spot the errors.
The weekend was spent sending multiple email, one for every error found, to the UAVenquiries@coo.co.uk address.
However, at one point the hoary subject of 50m horizontal clearances from uninvolved people reared its ugly head and forced the release of a LinkedIn post (linked below).
That led to direct contact being made by a concerned member of the CAA applications team who undertook to head a review of the document first thing on the following Monday morning. This he did, and by the 9th April, a mere 6 days after its initial version 1 release, the document was formally launched via SkyWise at version 1.1.
Now, it must be stressed that the CAA’s template is NOT a good document. It fails to provide operational advice, but simply states what operators must and must not do. Pretty standard for regulator but it leaves operators with a clunky document of well over 100 pages. Hardly practical as a guide for day-to-day operations.
It also fails to meet some of the CAA’s own requirements detailed in CAP 722H version 3.
The regulator has a long way to go to get these documents working together.
Eyeup Aerial Solutions CANNOT therefore recommend the use of CAP 2606.
To be honest, the CAA should not be recommending the use of this document either and should frankly withdraw it.
That’s all folks.
Except, let’s leave you with links to the LinkedIn posts mentioned above.
