Uncrewed Aerial Systems (UAS) Chief Pilot

Organisation

Cranfield Airport Operations Limited

School/Department

Cranfield Airport Operations Limited

Based at

Cranfield Campus, Cranfield, Bedfordshire

Hours of work

37.5 hours per week, normally worked Monday to Friday.

Salary

£40,000 to £50,000 per annum (based on experience)

Cranfield Airport is a commercial, GA, and research airport situated in Class G airspace situated between Bedford and the City of Milton Keynes with a 1799m runway which can accommodate business jets such as the Falcon, Gulfstream and Boeing Business Jet. Cranfield Airport’s Air Traffic Control has a fully digital control tower. Cranfield Airport is wholly owned by and located at Cranfield University.

We offer a challenging and varied working environment as part of a Global Research Airport and University, which includes collaborating on projects such as the UKRI Future Flight Challenge.

Co-funded by Research England, an industry consortium of leading aviation organisations and Cranfield University, the Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre (DARTeC) is a £67 million investment in state-of-the-art facilities that will leverage both the University’s own research airport and its newly opened autonomous vehicle research facility.

DARTeC opened in 2021 and will initially focus on five primary research challenges within an organisational resilience framework that individually have direct relevance to the digital agenda, and collectively provide the opportunity to explore and address systems integration challenges through advances in technology, intelligence, regulatory frameworks and business models:

• Connected Systems
• Uncrewed Traffic Management
• Seamless Passenger Experience
• Distributed Airport/Airspace Management
• Conscious Aircraft

Aviation and technically-minded candidates with a full (fixed-wind and multi-rotor) General Visual Certificate (GVC) are encouraged to apply.

Remotely-piloted fixed-wing experience is essential.

Conventional (crewed) pilot experience would be very beneficial.

Strong aviation knowledge will be essential given the primary operating environment at an Airport (i.e., Aviation law / meteorology, RT, Human Factors etc.)

The continue airworthiness requirement will require knowledge and maintenance experience of technical systems, such as mechanical structures, flight controllers, battery management, electronics, software, and radio systems.

For an informal discussion about the role, please contact Alex Williamson, UAS Manager on (E); [email protected]  or contact us for further details on E: [email protected] . Please quote reference number 4082.

Closing date for receipt of applications: 1 July 2022

Interviews to be held week commencing 11 July 2022