Headquarters Land Forces
Land Forces Secretariat
IDL 24
Marlborough Lines
Monxton Road
ANDOVER
SP11 8HJ
E-mail:
Website: www.army.mod.uk /
Mr P Sawford
/ Our Reference: HQLF/Sec/18-06/64632
Date: 14 February 2011
Dear Mr Sawford,
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT: CASE NUMBER – 03-02-2011-095825-006
Further to my letter of 07 February 2011, I am pleased to advise that I am now in a position to provide you with a substantive reply to your email of 02 February 2011, requesting ‘information in regard to the number of flyovers in UK airspace of unmanned ariel systems in the last three years’.
In answering your question, we have determined ‘flyover’ to mean ‘planned over-flight of the civilian population in the United Kingdom (UK).’ The Ministry of Defence currently has only two types of Unmanned Ariel Systems (UAS) operating in the UK; Desert Hawk 3 and Watchkeeper. Desert Hawk 3 is a short range system that is always flown in segregated airspace within existing notified UK Military Danger Areas. Watchkeeper, a longer range and more capable system, is currently undergoing flight trials at Parc Aberporth, West Wales Airport. When operating from Parc Aberporth, Watchkeeper is flown in the segregated Restricted Airspace (Temporary) (established by the Civil Aviation Authority to enable such activity) and the adjacent Military Danger Area. We can confirm that Desert Hawk 3 has not, therefore, conducted any ‘flyovers,’ and Watchkeeper will have only over-flown the local civilian population while conducting flight trials around Parc Aberporth. To date, since its first flight on 14 April 2010, Watchkeeper has conducted 13 flights from Parc Aberporth.
I hope you find this helpful. However, if you are not satisfied with this response or you wish to complain about any aspect of the handling of your request, then you should contact me in the first instance. If informal resolution is not possible and you are still dissatisfied then you may apply for an independent internal review by contacting the Head of Corporate Information, 2nd Floor, MOD Main Building, Whitehall, SW1A 2HB (e-mail ). Please note that any request for an internal review must be made within 40 working days of the date on which the attempt to reach informal resolution has come to an end.
If you remain dissatisfied following an internal review, you may take your complaint to the Information Commissioner under the provisions of Section 50 of the Freedom of Information Act. Please note that the Information Commissioner will not investigate your case until the MOD internal review process has been completed. Further details of the role and powers of the Information Commissioner can be found on the Commissioner's website, http://www.ico.gov.uk.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs Heidi Kent
LF Sec MS&E2a