Kite Flying and the Olympics
In the run up to the London Olympics 2012 changes are being made to the current Rules relating to aviation and members had asked whether this would impact kite flying. In our view there is no impact although of course it reasonable to assume that the authorities will be taking a heightened interest in many things during the Olympic period particularly if it is close to East London.
The proposed changes fall into two distinct areas and whilst they do not impact on kitefliers we thought it might be useful to set them out in brief.
The Home Office are putting in place restricted flying areas over London and Weymouth during the Games period. Aircraft are not permitted to enter the areas unless they have permission and meet a number of criteria.
Secondly, the CAA are putting temporary changes in place to controlled airspace, with a minimum of 1500 ft, often higher, to cope with the expected volumes of general aviation traffic that will be coming into airfields such as Manston, Southend and Biggin Hill.
In the case of the former, all types of aircraft are listed with the exception of kites. In the case of the second this clearly applies to 'air traffic'. The links below shows what aircraft are impacted by the Home Office rules so that kitefliers can have reassurance that kites are unaffected.
http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/airspace-restrictions/how-to-use-the-restricted-zone includes small/large unmanned and model aircraft and says the Air Navigation Order applies - so no change.
http://olympics.airspacesafety.com/airspace-restrictions/restrictions-14-july-2012-to-15-august-2012 shows the broad spread of restriction and is included for interest.
