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The UK Civil Aviation Authority is today announcing the General Aviation Unit (GAU) and Remotely Piloted Aircraft System Unit (RPAS) teams will be formally integrated into one unit with Sophie O'Sullivan, the current interim Head of the GAU and current Head of RPAS, named as the permanent Head of this combined unit.

Sophie O'Sullivan, Head of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Unit & General Aviation Unit said, “Bringing the teams together over the past six months has shown there are many internal similarities on how the units run and huge benefits for the external communities in working collaboratively on shared challenges. These include the ability to collectively work together on airspace integration and collaborate on innovation through aspects such as the Future Flight Fund work and the Airfield Advisory Fund.”

This organisational change does also not impact our management of airspace nor does it impact our central services desk that process your applications. We want to make clear that how we make decisions within each team will not change, how we work with government will not change, there is to be no change in any amount of resource assigned to technical work and any independence will not be lost.

Both GA and RPAS are recognised as economic growth areas for the UK and as such we want to assure both communities, we are committed to continuing our ongoing working relationships with you.

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