Air traffic control centre offers solid grounding in drone flying for students
Steve Graham applauds a tie-up between NATS Prestwick and the University of the West of Scotland
Astheuk’s leading provider of air traffic management services, from our two air traffic control centres, in Prestwick, Ayrshire, and at Swanwick, Hampshire, every year NATS handles 2.4 million flights carrying 250 million passengers through UK airspace.
The safety of our skies is very much our business – but we are also committed to making a difference on the ground, in our local communities.
To that end, NATS Prestwick is proud to have collaborated with the University of the West of Scotland (UWS) in a skills-sharing initiative designed to bring industry and academia closer together.
Since signing a partnership agreement in May of last year, forging strong ties with all four of the university’s campuses, in Ayr, Paisley, Dumfries and the Lanarkshire campus in Hamilton, has been a priority.
NATS is no stranger to working in strategic partnerships with other aviation-sector businesses – we already have successful relationships with a number of major UK airports.
But this exciting alliance will hopefully be just one of many community engagement initiatives from our Prestwick centre. Supporting education on a local level, especially nurturing home-grown engineering talent, is a priority for us.
With top-level support from UWS vice-principal Ehsan Mesbahi and NATS Prestwick director Alastair Muir, the accord has already led to a series of collaborative projects, including student research assignments, an inaugural one-year industrial student placement at our Prestwick site, guest lectures delivered on campus by NATS engineers, training sessions and best practice studies – and further cooperation is planned.
Take drone-flying, for example. The popularity of drones is growing daily, and increasingly innovative drone applications are constantly being designed and developed. At NATS we are looking at ways to integrate these new technologies safely into the UK’S existing air traffic environment, and UWS researchers are identifying exciting new study opportunities – it is a great opportunity for NATS to work with members of the university to promote safe drone flying.
By helping the university train drone pilots, we are excited to be involved in research projects as diverse as surveying the individual temperature signatures of grazing cows in order to check their health, to developing new drone technology to assist the emergency services with their operations.
The partnership between NATS and UWS has also enabled us to make our extensive drone expertise available to university staff and students alike, helping them fly drones safely and responsibly and taking them a step closer to achieving Caa-approved licences that will allow them to fly drones commercially.
The valuable and reciprocal experience we have gained is, in turn, helping to inform our work in developing online and computerbased drone pilot training courses for commercial drone pilots.
We are also getting involved in helping UWS develop new courses. The university has invited a handful of NATS staff to participate in media training exercises at its Ayr campus.
Acting as TV and radio interviewees not only helps us practise our spokesperson skills but also helps UWS develop a course to equip students with techniques relevant in the business world. Guest lectures form another strand of our UWS collaboration – I am looking forward to speaking to first year undergraduate engineering students, offering them an overview of air traffic control, presenting a wider exposure to engineering and industry in general, and hopefully inspiring some students towards a career in aviation.
NATS Prestwick’s community involvement is not limited to the UWS partnership agreement. We appreciate local support for our everyday air traffic management operations and, as an integral part of our community, we are committed to giving something back.
We have strong links with the Ayrshire Hospice, an Ayr-based charity offering palliative and end-oflife residential care to those with lifelimiting illness throughout Ayrshire and Arran.
Although the hospice receives partial NHS funding, it relies on individual and private donations to help raise the £20,000 needed daily to keep its services running. As well as fundraising for the hospice, expe
rienced NATS employees regularly meet informally with hospice staff to share information and experiences – we can offer support in the setting of financial targets, key performance indicators and project management.
We can also learn a great deal about critical incident management and post-trauma counselling programmes from Ayrshire Hospice personnel who are extremely skilled at dealing with challenging human situations in their everyday work. We are honoured to play our part in such an effective two-way dialogue that benefits both our organisations and goes well beyond writing a donation cheque (although this is also an important part).
Although the commercial benefits of non-core activity as part of a business partnership are not always obvious at the outset, with commitment and an open mind we believe it is possible to build enduring relationships that deliver real benefit all round. Steve Graham, head of prospective centre services, NATS Prestwick. 0 Helping to train commercial drone pilots has become part of a collaboration with the University of the West of Scotland