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This is good. If NATS and eventually Eurocontrol can integrate RPAs into European civilian airspace, then between them and the Australians, a lot of the ground work will have been done when North America decides to do the same.
http://www.nats.aero/news/unmanned-aircraft-flies-in-uk-civil-airspace/
Air traffic controllers at NATS managed the first flight by an unmanned aircraft in controlled and unsegregated airspace, in what is being hailed as a UK first and major milestone in the development of Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) for civil and commercial use.
The first flight took place on Wednesday 30 September, with Thales’s Watchkeeper UAS taking-off from West Wales Airport and embarking on a three hour flight, part of which took a UAS into civil controlled airspace for the first time.
There it was controlled in exactly the same way as a traditional manned aircraft, despite the fact that the pilots were sat on the ground in a control room at the airport.
http://www.nats.aero/news/unmanned-aircraft-flies-in-uk-civil-airspace/