Drone flight test at Wick airport

Highland News & Media

Test flight of the largest unmanned air vehicle (UAV) in Europe.

Transcript

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00:31 - Good morning, it's an exciting time

00:33 for the SAIT consortium.

00:36 We finally managed to bring our aircraft,

00:40 almost the largest cargo UAV in Europe, up to WIC.

00:46 And it's a pleasure to have the director

00:51 of the SAIT consortium and senior management here.

00:55 Do you wanna just give a quick--

00:58 - Morning, sir, yeah, good morning.

00:59 Well, it is an exciting morning, it's an early morning.

01:02 We're here at WIC, we're in the sustainable

01:06 aviation test environment.

01:08 We're looking forward to the first flight,

01:10 first flight in Scotland, in fact,

01:11 I think the first flight in the UK of a vehicle,

01:14 a heavy lift, autonomous drone, so really exciting times.

01:18 We've got the wind, or rather we haven't got the wind,

01:21 which is good news, we're just hoping that the water--

01:24 - The rain would help us. - May have faded slightly.

01:26 And then we'll be off for the flight,

01:28 which will be very exciting.

01:30 We've been absolutely delighted that our care systems

01:33 have joined the consortium, and the real point

01:36 of this flight is that we're looking forward

01:38 to the future, where we can have this aircraft in service,

01:41 particularly in this region, and help us

01:44 with the connectivity challenges we have,

01:46 particularly to move cargo and freight around the islands

01:50 and some of the more rural communities

01:53 that clearly we have up there.

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02:00 - So, the guys, our care systems ready for the quick pass.

02:09 - Obviously roger, there's no traffic in the ATZ,

02:11 7100 degrees south-north, drone flight.

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02:20 - This was a successful test of the full-size prototype

02:42 of the C600, which is the largest VTOL cargo UAV

02:47 in Europe.

02:49 We are very thankful to Innovate UK

02:51 and all of the parties who supported us for this test

02:54 and look forward for BVLAS test,

02:57 and also different use cases that we could use

03:00 this aircraft and take it to the commercialization.

03:03 - I'm delighted to say that we've had a really successful

03:06 trial here today at Wake Airport,

03:08 and it's the first of kind in the UK again.

03:11 And hopefully we'll see a lot more of this kind of thing

03:14 in the future, and hopefully this is just the first step

03:17 in what is really exciting developments in aviation.

03:20 It's really is a good time to be part

03:23 of the aviation industry.

03:25 I've been in it for over 20 years

03:26 and it's probably the most exciting developments

03:28 as this last few years with novel types of aircraft

03:32 like this, and you can see how it really can make

03:34 a big difference to people in remote and rural communities,

03:37 which is what we serve.

03:38 So, HILE is delighted to be a partner in this eight project

03:42 and hopefully we'll have a lot more successful trials.

03:45 - Hello, I'm the CTO of Arcair Systems.

03:49 I had the pleasure of leading the team

03:51 who've designed and flown this UAV.

03:54 All the credit should go to the team.

03:57 This is a first for the UK, and I think in Europe,

04:01 being the largest UAV in free flight under civilian license,

04:06 that's quite an achievement.

04:08 Hi, good afternoon.

04:09 It's David Holden from the Sustainable Aviation

04:11 Test Environment.

04:13 Absolutely delighted with today's successful

04:16 first test flight of Arcair Systems

04:19 and their C600 heavy lift autonomous drone.

04:23 We've had a brilliant morning here at a quite cold,

04:26 quite damp Wick Airport.

04:28 Got a few thank yous.

04:29 First of all, thank you to the Arcair Systems team.

04:33 A massive thank you to the HILE,

04:35 Highlands and Islands Airports team here at Wick,

04:38 John O'Groats, who've been out since early this morning.

04:41 And a special thank you to the UKRI

04:44 and the Future Flight Challenge

04:45 for the funding and the opportunity.

04:47 We can see the potential of this technology,

04:50 and we've proved the technology works well this morning,

04:53 and we're looking forward to flights over longer distances

04:56 and beyond visual line of sight,

04:58 and hopefully seeing it in service

05:01 to provide benefits to the local community

05:03 in the very near future.

05:04 Thank you ever so much.

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