RPQ (Remote Pilot Qualification)

RPQ (Remote Pilot Qualification)

RPQ-s (Remote Pilot Qualification small)

UAS (Unmanned Aerial System)

CAA (Civil Aviation Authority)

Have a mulirotor? With a Camera? Captured Great images & Video? Want to earn MONEY using it?

Then we have a problem........

Last week I went on a 3 day course to become an RPQ and this article is for people who are thinking about making money using multirotors, what you need, and whats stopping you in the UK....BUT American's you may want to read as well because something along the lines of this may be coming your way.....

So what do you need if you want to fly in the UK for COMMERCIAL GAIN?

       1.Pilot Qualification (which is made up of a ground school assessment & a Flight Test)

       2.CAA Permission to Fly (Which is made of several Documents sent to the CAA)

       3.Insurance 

       4. A platform that weighs less than 20Kg

These are required by LAW to sell images and video or any other applications of unmanned aircraft, This is being taken extremely seriously and last month (April 2014) the CAA Carried out is first prosecution of ILLEGAL flying in the UK.

This was for flying his DJI phantom within 150m of a busy bridge and crashing it.....

The Rules

•The person in charge of a small unmanned surveillance aircraft must not fly the aircraft in any of the circumstances listed below without permission from the CAA

1. Over or within 150m of any congested area

2. Over or within 150m of any organised open air assembly with more than 1000 people

3. within 50m of any vessel,vehicle or structure that is not 'under the control' of the person in charge of the aircraft

4. During take of the SUSA must not be flown within 30m of any person not 'under the control' of the person in charge of the aircraft.

You must always fly VISUAL LINE OF SIGHT & within 500m Radius & 400ft Height.

- All of the listed above you can get permission to be exempt from those rules but to do that you need to have an RPQ.

RPQ? (Remote Pilot Qualification)

The RPQ is made up of a ground school assessment (Which is not EASY) and a flight assessment which is...sort of.

The course is around £1500 so when you buy your phantom thinking "OH Yeah its only £800" Add £1500 to that price + all the equipment you need which ill tell you about later.

The course is ran by 2 companies:

Resource group - Recommended highly and they were fantastic, I wont even name the other company as they don't meet the same standard as resource group but charge the same price.

Everything you need to do is helped by resource group you send them your documents and they send them back with changes you need to make and they are there all the way to help you get your permission to fly.

The Ground school is made up of:

1. Web based Learning:(done at home)

Meteorological Data

Map Reading

Chart Reading

Principles of Flight

GPS

UAV components                                                                                                

 2. 3 Day ground school

Air Law

Human Factors

Air Safety

Flight operations 

Flight procedures

And Practical sessions of all above + and Exam on the last day. Which is PASS or FAIL.

There is much more that you think to just putting your UAS in a field and going flying, for example if your flying in an Air traffic controlled zone its recommended  that you call ATC by phone and tell them what you doing. 

If the ground level of the flight zone is more than 400ft you can't fly because that your restriction

will there be lots of people there, is there enough space 

Theres A LOT to think about before planning a job.

Once that is complete and you pass you have to take an air assessment which is to show your are competent to fly your UAS.

To take the flight assessment you need to complete: Flight Reference cards

Flight Reference Cards

Now for the pilots out there who have flown full scare you may know that they are but basically they are a small manual usually around 20 pages which has all the technical data of the aircraft the starting procedures, take off procedures and landing procedures and most importantly EMERGENCY PROCEDURES!!!!!

You have to (with helpful templates) Create your own FRC's for your aircraft and operations.

That extra kit I mentioned, in your FRC you will have to state that you will check the weather and Data signals, cordon area's and if you right it in your FRC you have to have it WITH YOU when your have your flight assessment you will need:

Fire extinguisher

First aid Kit

Lipo bags

spectrum analyser 

cones

Weather check machine 

It all adds up and its a big step to think about before you go out and buy a £1000 aircraft.

You will have to demonstrate that you know you FRC's all your procedures and then carry out a flight now all there looking for on the flight is SAFE FLYING nothing fancy.

CAA Permission

Once all that is done can you get your permission? NO.

You have to complete an operations manual, this is a BIG documents about how you will operate SAFELY its basically your way to convince the CAA to let you fly and that you will be safe.

Once that is complete and its sent to the CAA (at which point you shouldn't get refused) you can get you permission to fly.

There is a lot to think about and I hope I have helped you if you are thinking about earning money doing using a UAS.

I'm now an RPQ and looking to take my flight assessment soon, I'm doing this for my own business but hey if it doesn't work out I can always go work as a pilot for someone else and that beats the 9 - 5 at the moment.

So if you want to fly for living but not full scale, UAS/UAV/SUAS/RPAS is defiantly the future.

If you are thinking about this check out http://uas.resourcegroup.co.uk they will help you with any questions

my website is www.G-Aviation.net you can see some of my work there.