INTRODUCTION

Background

The growth in the Light RPAS industry has been most noticeable below 25kg whereas most understanding of aviation regulation is still above 150kg as shown by the work of the Joint Aviation Authorities for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (JARUS) ¹ with the Community Standard for Light Unmanned Rotary Systems (CS-LURS) and the future Light Unmanned Aircraft Systems (CS-LUAS).

Although the JARUS CS-LURS is an excellent piece of work for rotary aircraft up to 750kg, this is set against a background where 95% of all civil RPAS operations are using aircraft with a Maximum Take-off Mass (MTOM) of less than 20 to 25kg within 500m and 400ft of the pilot in command, using Visual Line of Sight Operation (VLOS) rules.

In the formation of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the initial basic regulation ANNEX II, as amended EC 216/2008 Annex 2² was influenced by the work of the JAA/Eurocontrol UAV Task Force (JEUTF)³ developed between 2002 and 2004. This led to ANNEX II of the Regulation allowing National Authorities to regulate independently all RPAS where the aircraft mass was below 150kg and in a way recognising the unique nature of RPAS below 150kg.

The early work of WG-73⁴ started to recognise the importance of Visual Line of Sight (|VLOS) operations for light RPAS, the original WG 73 Subgroup 4 on VLOS operations work has now been subsumed into the work of WG-93. The current work within WG-93 stresses the importance of VLOS operations for Small Unmanned Aircraft (SUA)⁵ which have been recognised by some Aviation Authorities e.g. UK CAA⁶ for some time and has now been recognised at the European level.

Starting officially in 2009 at the first European Union (EU) hearing⁷ organised through UVSI International, the EU RPAS strategy⁸ has taken 5 years to develop. The High Level Conference ⁹ and subsequent EU workshops in this process showed the difficulty of applying traditional approaches to this new branch of aviation operation.

1 JARUS - http://www.jarus-rpas.org

2 EC 216/2008 - wwww.eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2008:079 :0001:0049:EN:PDF

3 JAA/Eurocontrol UAV Task Force (JEUTF) Final Report as amended by the EASA (2005) – www.easa.europa.eu/rulemaking/docs/npa/2005/NPA_16_2005_Appendix.pdf 4 EUROCAE WG-73 - www.eurocae.net/working-groups/wg-list/42-wg-73.html ER-004 Vol

4 UAS for Visual Line of Sight Operations

5 UK CAA - www.caa.co.uk/cap393 - articles 166 and 167

6 UK CAA - www.caa.co.uk/cap393 - articles 166 and 167

7 Hearing on Light Unmanned Systems - www.ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/doc/ 2009_10_08_hearing_uas.pdf

8 Towards a European strategy for the development of civil applications of Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS) - www.ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/aerospace/uas/index_en.htm

9 EU High Conference - www.ec.europa.eu/transport/modes/air/doc/2010_07_01_conclusions_uas_ conference_v__finale.pdf