Armed Forces Day 2019
We recently deployed one of our specialist Crowd Management Flight Crew to Plymouth to support Plymouth City Council in deliver of Armed Forces Day. AFD is typically a higher threat level event than most due to its association with the armed forces in the UK. Planning starts well before the typical start for a lesser risk event.
This was our first event of a new three-year exclusive deal with Plymouth City Council which sees us supplies all drone services for the council and major events in Plymouth.
Crowded Space Drones holds a special approval, known as an exemption, from the Civil Aviation Authority to allow us to fly under 50 metres from large crowds. To put that into context, the standard approval almost all UK drone operators hold requires them to fly a minimum of 150m from crowds and major events.
Flying in Plymouth is not a simple task, the event site was the Hoe which is almost entirely used for event activities. Through this contract, we have 4 sites around the Hoe which we have pre planned to use at a variety of their events. This means that even with a last-minute deployment, we know everything about where we will be flying from, enhancing safety.
We then provide a live downlink into the Event Control Room directly from our drone and also provide this to the emergency services control rooms if requested. A new addition or 2019 is our ability to live downstream to small devices used by Crowd Management teams on the ground so they can see what is happening from directly above.
The drones we fly feature weather proofing and long-range cameras (5-10km views are possible) but thankfully for AFD 2019 the weather was lovely and sunny!
To show how important the service is to the council, prior to the air display starting reports came in of people on beaches around the bay. The patrol boats could not get onto the beaches due to it being too shallow and these people were in the crowd exclusion area of the airshow. They had no way of quickly working out what do it without being able to see what was happening and where.
We deployed our drone out to sea, checking all the coastal beaches and coves for people. This allows the event team to work out if those people were in restricted areas which could affect the air display, the initial report was there were in the restricted areas. Once the drone was in the air and checking these areas, it became quickly clear there was no issue with the crowds positioning and the air display was approved. Without the video feed, the airshow may not have gone ahead.