The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is due to relax measures regarding the flying of drones so that operators can fly them outside their line of sight to enable them to be used to deliver medical equipment to remote communities around the country.
Drone companies have said that these unmanned aerial vehicles can be used for commercial and medical supplies, including coronavirus tests, which will help reduce the need for human contact and thus help minimise the spread of coronavirus, the Daily Telegraph, via the Mail, reports.
Air corridors are going to be set up so the drones can fly in designated zones if safety standards are met by the operators, proving they can fly and land the aircraft without fault even if the drones aren’t in their eye line.
The new measures are set to be limited to 90 days in these air corridors. It’s thought that it should be easy to roll this scheme out because of the reduced aircraft in the skies right now.
An air corridor has already been approved between Southampton and the Isle of Wight, with a drone able to make a ten-minute flight four times a day to supply St Mary’s Hospital, Newport with medical supplies.
The UK’s PPE controversy is still ongoing, however, with 400,000 protective gowns that were flown in from Turkey now having to be returned and a refund sought after it was found that they didn’t conform to UK standards.
The shipment of gowns was also days late arriving from Turkey, which led to hospital leaders attacking the government directly for the first time since the pandemic began, according to the Guardian.
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