Drones are those flying killer robot things aren’t they? Answer: Ummm Yes and No

A common misconception is that drones are all killing machines used for wars! This post aims to clear up that ambiguity. Lets’ take it from the top and describe some common terms used here in the UK:

An aircraft is defined as a heavier than air power driven aircraft (i.e. a hot air balloon does not fall into this category, nor does a glider because the former is lighter than air and the latter is not power driver).

An unmanned aircraft is an aircraft as described above that has no pilot on board. That is not to say there is no pilot at all, merely that he/she is not on-board the aircraft during the flight (more on this below).

In the UK a small unmanned aircraft is an unmanned aircraft as described above with a weight (excluding fuel) of less than 20kg. Other countries vary their definitions with regards to ‘small’ but generally this is correct around the globe. The weight is important as it determines what rules must be followed in terms of aircraft design and how it is operated.

Another term that is creeping in is small unmanned aircraft system. This is as described above, however the the term system appended usually means that we are referring to the system as a whole that is required to make the small unmanned aircraft operate. A system comprises of People (i.e. the Pilot and Observer), Procedures (i.e. Operations Manual) and Equipment (i.e. the aircraft, video link, control frequency etc.).

So the definition of Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA) is fairly straight forwards but what about others terms such as drone, remote controlled aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicle etc that are thrown about so much. The term drone is often used by the anti-SUA community and news reporters because for the general public this conjures up images of military or weaponized unmanned aircraft and flying killer robots, something that obviously helps sell headlines and scare people. For this very reason, civil unmanned aircraft operators have been working hard to separate themselves from this misconception between Civil Unmanned Aircraft and Military Drones by adopting a more generic terminology, RPAS. RPAS stands for a Remotely Piloted Aircraft System, which is EXACTLY the same thing as an Unmanned Aircraft System however we are explicitly making it clear that the Unmanned Aircraft System is Piloted and not ‘Autonomous’ which technically an Unmanned Aircraft could be (e.g. flying under it’s own authority with artificial intelligence).

By rejecting the term drone so strongly we have caused ourselves a but of an identity crisis and more confusion for the general public. One option is to instead focus our efforts on educating the general public that there are military drones and civil drones. Help them understand that Military drones are used by armed forces for combat, defense and and surveillance (note not all military drones are armed with deadly weapons!). And civil drones are everything else used in a civil and peaceful environment, they range in size, shape, engines but most importantly they are not armed. The sooner that message is understood by the general public, the sooner the sight and sound of ‘drones’ will become acceptable.

If you’re interested in reading the CAA definitions further See CAP393 - the UK Rule of the Air