Policing from The Skies – Inside The NPAS’s Amazing Drone Trial

It begins, as it so often does on Altitude, with a conversation that is part interview, part glimpse into the future. A stretch of coastline. An aircraft that isn’t quite what the untrained eye thinks it is. The hum is different.

Joining host Russell Porter are Richard Ellis, Director of New Airspace Users at NATS; Ed Clay, Head of Technical Strategy at the UK Civil Aviation Authority; and David Walters, Head of Futures and Innovation at the National Police Air Service. Walters speaks with the quiet excitement of a man who knows he is standing at the edge of something. Behind him sits the Schiebel S-100, the uncrewed aircraft at the heart of one of the UK’s most ambitious trials. It is not the machine, exactly, that is the story – not the rotors or the bodywork, not even the radar nose or the camera eye – but what it represents: the blending of worlds.

This isn’t about replacing helicopters with uncrewed aircraft. It’s about widening the spectrum, building a toolbox where each instrument has its role. The EC135 helicopters: fast, agile, able to drop into a scene in minutes. The uncrewed aircraft: quieter, cleaner, able to stay aloft for hours at a time. Each complements the other, the art in knowing which to call upon. The challenge – and the opportunity – lies in knitting them together into one seamless air service.

For that, the UK CAA’s sandboxes are key.  Ed Clay explains them as dedicated areas and operations for testing technology and procedures without impacting the whole air traffic system. The aim is not to carve out permanent drone-only corridors, but to bring uncrewed aircraft into the same skies as everything else. Integration, not segregation. And the only way to get there is to experiment, to gather data, to take it one deliberate step at a time.

Richard Ellis from NATS, is one of the people making sure those steps are safe. His team manages temporary danger areas where these trials can happen and coordinates with other airspace users to avoid conflict. Right now, that means careful scheduling and close monitoring from Cardiff’s control tower. The long-term goal is more dynamic management – airspace that can flex in real time, letting all users coexist.

And while the technology may be the most visible part of the story, Walters is quick to stress that the trial’s success depends on a network of partners. Regulators, the general aviation community, the military who share the same skies. Industry collaborators like Schiebel, who have configured the aircraft for this unique mission, and the flight crews who operate it. Even the team at Avonmouth port, whose helipad has become the project’s base, creating a miniature heliport where the trial comes to life. These aren’t side notes; they are essential threads in the fabric of the project.

In the past month alone, the S-100 has flown thirty hours, crossing the Bristol Channel, testing radar and camera systems, pushing its endurance to the edge. Every sortie is a lesson: about how sensors behave in different wind conditions, how operators manage hours of concentration, how voices carry over VHF from a  ground-based control office to an air traffic controller and back again.

This is not technology for technology’s sake. Walters is quick to remind viewers that in a police helicopter, it’s not always the camera that finds the missing person. It’s the eyes – human eyes, spotting a coat or a movement in the trees. How do you replicate that when the only eyes are a lens? Maybe with AI, feeding real-time alerts to the crew. Maybe with something no one has quite thought of yet. That’s part of the point of all this: to find out.

There’s a patience to the work, and an urgency too. Patience because regulations must be shaped, lessons must be learned, trust must be earned. Urgency because the potential is huge – not just for policing, but for emergency services, for infrastructure, for delivery, for the way we think about the sky. By 2030, there could be hundreds of thousands of drones over the UK, and the work being done now will decide whether that future becomes a reality.

Ultimately, it’s about building a culture where innovation and safety walk side by side. Where operators aren’t afraid to tell regulators when something’s gone wrong, and regulators work not from a distance but shoulder to shoulder with the people flying. It’s about learning, not just to fly differently, but to think differently about what flying is.

And so, somewhere on the Severn Estuary, under the sweep of radar, the Schiebel lifts once more into the night. No pilot in the cockpit, but a team everywhere: in Cardiff’s tower, in the ground-based control office, in offices where policies are drafted and redrafted. Each holding a piece of a puzzle that could redefine the very shape of the skies. The night is quiet, but here, the future hums loudly. As Walters put it when asked what success looks like, he said “it’s not about whether this gets implemented. Success is giving NPAS the right insight, context, and experience so they can make the best decision for themselves.”