In March 2025 our Drone Detection team deployed to support Helipad Events team monitor the airspace surrounding Cheltenham Racecourse during the Cheltenham Festival.
With up to 90 in and outbound movements per day, including the Royal Flight, Cheltenham becomes one of the most active heliports in the world for the four-day race event. As such the ability to detect drone incursions is crucial to flight safety.
Over the course of the four-day period, two serious drone incursions were detected with law enforcement action taking place with the most serious. In this case our detection team was able to identify the position and altitude of the drone relative to the FATO and the position of the controller. Using Atlas, WhatThreeWords and Google Streetview, a team from Gloucester Police was successfully dispatched to the controller’s position.
Nick Cox, Managing Director, Helipad said: “Innovation is the at the heart of our offer and our relationship with Gama Aviation has provided us with an additional layer of airspace monitoring that is at the heart of our control tower operations. This offers two distinct benefits; one, we have situational control and can act with agility if an incursion is identified; two, we can work with the Police’s chain of command to remove the threat.”
Mark Smith, Managing Director, Special Mission, said: “We look forward to working with the Helipad Events team at future events. The technology deployed in its most basic set-up delivered the results we anticipated, and as such, we look forward to deploying the more advanced capability for larger-scale events in the future.”
