# Unmanned aircraft flies in UK civil airspace



## dimsum (15 Oct 2015)

This is good.  If NATS and eventually Eurocontrol can integrate RPAs into European civilian airspace, then between them and the Australians, a lot of the ground work will have been done when North America decides to do the same.



> Air traffic controllers at NATS managed the first flight by an unmanned aircraft in controlled and unsegregated airspace, in what is being hailed as a UK first and major milestone in the development of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for civil and commercial use.
> 
> The first flight took place on Wednesday 30 September, with Thales’s Watchkeeper UAS taking-off from West Wales Airport and embarking on a three hour flight, part of which took a UAS into civil controlled airspace for the first time.
> 
> There it was controlled in exactly the same way as a traditional manned aircraft, despite the fact that the pilots were sat on the ground in a control room at the airport.



http://www.nats.aero/news/unmanned-aircraft-flies-in-uk-civil-airspace/


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