UK RPAS Practical Flight Assessment Questions

[turramin]

Hello,
First post here for me, I've been lurking about and reading some very interesting threads for a wee while now, great forum, full of very handy info but I'm not much of a poster unless I've got something positive to contribute or have questions.
Which leads me to my first questions. I'm from North East Scotland and I'm in the process of gaining my RPAs qualification / competency with Resource Group. I've successfully completed my ground school and I'm now spending every day possible conducting mock jobs and practising my ATTI flying. I'm hoping to have everything in place for my practical flight assessment by January.
I'd be interested to know exactly the sort of emergency situations I should expect on the day of my test? My instructor on the course was a bit vague and would not go into too much detail. Can anyone who's already done it give me some pointers? I'm expecting to have GPS failure / flyaway, possible public intrusion, landing zone compromised. Is there any thing else I should concentrate on? Will I be expected to land my inspire in ATTI mode or will it be enough to bring it under control and back to the landing zone in ATTI and switch to GPS to land?
Not a huge problem if thats the case, I'd just prefer not to risk landing it ATTI if I don't have to.
Any info would be very helpful.
Cheers!

 

[The Editor]

Hello,
First post here for me, I've been lurking about and reading some very interesting threads for a wee while now, great forum, full of very handy info but I'm not much of a poster unless I've got something positive to contribute or have questions.
Which leads me to my first questions. I'm from North East Scotland and I'm in the process of gaining my RPAs qualification / competency with Resource Group. I've successfully completed my ground school and I'm now spending every day possible conducting mock jobs and practising my ATTI flying. I'm hoping to have everything in place for my practical flight assessment by January.
I'd be interested to know exactly the sort of emergency situations I should expect on the day of my test? My instructor on the course was a bit vague and would not go into too much detail. Can anyone who's already done it give me some pointers? I'm expecting to have GPS failure / flyaway, possible public intrusion, landing zone compromised. Is there any thing else I should concentrate on? Will I be expected to land my inspire in ATTI mode or will it be enough to bring it under control and back to the landing zone in ATTI and switch to GPS to land?
Not a huge problem if thats the case, I'd just prefer not to risk landing it ATTI if I don't have to.
Any info would be very helpful.
Cheers!

Hi - welcome to the forum.

OK, don't take this the wrong way but..... It wouldn't be much of an exam/flight assessment if you knew EXACTLY what to expect
Having said that:
You will have/should have a series of emergency/boldface situations/actions in your Ops manual. You can be tested on ANY of these situations and be expected to act appropriately given the 'emergency' and follow your boldface procedures exactly.
It is up to the examiner whether he wants you to land or will accept a hover at low altitude (2ft or so) as completion of that particular task.
You should also be totally confident in atti - as an example, my assessment had some atti flying at 400ft in gusty conditions.
You maybe asked to fly between a couple of obstacles (trees etc), or you may become incapacitated.

Hope that helps.

 

[turramin]

Hi - welcome to the forum.

OK, don't take this the wrong way but..... It wouldn't be much of an exam/flight assessment if you knew EXACTLY what to expect
Having said that:
You will have/should have a series of emergency/boldface situations/actions in your Ops manual. You can be tested on ANY of these situations and be expected to act appropriately given the 'emergency' and follow your boldface procedures exactly.
It is up to the examiner whether he wants you to land or will accept a hover at low altitude (2ft or so) as completion of that particular task.
You should also be totally confident in atti - as an example, my assessment had some atti flying at 400ft in gusty conditions.
You maybe asked to fly between a couple of obstacles (trees etc), or you may become incapacitated.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the tips Editor, very helpful indeed.
Yes I totally get the reasoning behind not knowing exactly what to expect and I'm sure every test is different depending on weather, location ect. I'm thoroughly enjoying the challenge so far. I'm not looking for a definitive list of what to expect, just interested to hear what others have had to deal with so I can be thorough and focused in the correct areas in my pre test flying . My strategy for atti has been to go back to my first ever quad, a wee non gps Syma X5, I've been flying it for hours recently with a focus on landing safely. I've also been using the Inspire extensively in atti on calm days, now working up to breezy. I'll have plenty windy days to practice on too over the coming months I guess.

 

[IrishSights]

Sounds like you have the right strategy. I did mine through Eurousc. The most challenging for me on the day was doing the manoeuvres in ATTI in 17 kt winds + gusts!

 

[Frank Johnston]

Hi Turramin. I'm also from the North East and from your handle I think I can guess where you are based. I am just about to submit my FRC's for flight assessment also with Resource Group so will let you know how it goes. I was told by another local who has done the assessment to expect the ATTI flying and also a remote failure simulated by the controller being turned off [emoji15] have practiced this a couple of times and it is a bit scary but works flawlessly on the Inspire. I am in the Inverurie area BTW. Happy flying.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[turramin]

Hi Turramin. I'm also from the North East and from your handle I think I can guess where you are based. I am just about to submit my FRC's for flight assessment also with Resource Group so will let you know how it goes. I was told by another local who has done the assessment to expect the ATTI flying and also a remote failure simulated by the controller being turned off [emoji15] have practiced this a couple of times and it is a bit scary but works flawlessly on the Inspire. I am in the Inverurie area BTW. Happy flying.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Cheers Frank!
I'd be very interested to hear how you get on, good luck with it!
I've started a rough draft of my ops manual and frc's, i'm not in any hurry with them though, want to get them right.