Team Ocuair made aviation history this week by becoming the first people to fly a quadcopter drone across the English Channel. The amazing feat saw a custom built drone cover the 35km (21.7 mile) distance in a single flight of 72 minutes. The drone launched from a French Beach near Wissant and landed on Shakespeare Beach in Dover.
The flight went smoothly until the 23km (14 mile) mark. Chief pilot Richard Gill said, “There [were] a couple of sticky points where we had to dodge a shipping container and another large vessel, and the GPS failed two-thirds of the way across, but all our skills and drills were in place, we knew what we were doing, the team was well-oiled and well-drilled.”
After disabling the faulty GPS, Gill flew the quad manually for the last 20 minutes of the flight.
After landing, Gill noted, “It’s been really difficult, but I’m over the moon to have achieved what we’ve done today. Drones are going to be the new aviation horizon,” he says. “They’re going to change the way we do everything in the future, from delivering parcels to search-and-rescue and inspections. So, I wanted to be a part of that history.”
