With the rapidly increasing use of drones in Uganda and around the globe, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and other respective government agencies together with different stakeholders have joined hands in a bid to review and establish effective means of control, monitoring and regulations involved with the rapidly developing unmanned (drone) industry.
While addressing the drones’ sensitization workshop in Kampala on Wednesday, Eng. Ronnie Barongo, the CAA Director Safety, Security and Economic Regulation disclosed that the regulations are still in draft form and soon the various stakeholders will be sensitized on the new draft regulations, get their in-put and then be promulgated in the next few months.
The Regulations have been harmonized with the East African Region with assistance from Civil Aviation Safety, security Organization and Oversight Agency (CASSOA) and the main challenge has been lack of awareness. Some people use the drones without knowing the restrictions and weren’t aware of other parties or space users, Eng. Barongo stated.
In his remarks, Richard Ruhesi, the CAA Director Air Navigation Services stated that while the advantages of the drone technology are enormous and varied, the complexity of the unmanned industry is challenging the traditional aviation regulatory system. Mr. Ruhesi revealed that the challenges range from compromising Civil aviation flight safety to impacting on State security and gross invasion of privacy.
With the increasing demand to apply Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) or drone technology in Visual Line of Sight (VLOS) and Beyond Visual Line Of Sight (BVLOS) applications, the need to review and establish effective means of control and regulations has never been more urgently required than today. Clearing drones importation and authorizing their operation is the easy part of the challenge. The most challenging task is to monitor their operations, once authorized to be used, Mr. Ruhesi explained.
He added;
In order for RPAS/Drones to be widely accepted, they will have to be integrated into the existing aviation system without negatively affecting safety of manned aviation. There is need to establish a constant information exchange between states, industry and other stakeholders. It is against this background that the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) has organized the workshop in order to provide a forum for the various Government agencies involved in the regulation and authorization of drones usage to enlighten users on the dangers, but also to get feedback on how best to ensure utilization of the new technology without causing harm to society.
During the workshop, officials from Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA), Uganda revenue Authority and Uganda People Defence Forces (UPDF) highlighted various challenges involving in the use of drones including;
On their part, officials from Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) revealed that the challenges include among others; No ICAO annexes for Regulations Development, smuggling and unauthorized use of drones, not easy to differentiate between toys and drones and monitoring of drone operations is not easy.
The UPDF noted that Drones contain GPS technology which poses security issues and can also be used to carry explosives, chemicals, radiological or biological hazards. They also revealed that drones can be used maliciously to crash into vulnerable groups and can cause unintentional collision in Air Traffic or other interference with other Aircraft in flight.
URA officials noted that many drones remain un-cleared in stores due to limited public knowledge on clearance procedures which could impact negatively on tourism.
Meanwhile, Uganda Revenue Authority also noted that there has been an increase in the importation of drones from 2017 to 2019 (an average of four drones per day), a trend which is expected to continue. The drones, according to URA, are imported by tourists, events/ entertainment companies and families (toy drones).
According to URA Status Of Drone Clearance In FY2018/19 shows that out of the 442 drones that URA has handled, only 191 drones have been cleared while 251 drones are still un-cleared in the customs stores.
URA called for increased public awareness through multiple media channels and legislation on drone importation and usage should be fast tracked. CAA team called for encouragement of Approved Training Organizations (ATO) to include drone piloting course on their syllabus.
