Drone Regulation Is Only the First Step

On 11 June 2019, the European Union’s new regulation on drones was published. This milestone has been reached thanks to intense cooperation between the European Commission (EC), European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), EUROCONTROL, JARUS, European national aviation authorities, and multiple drone & aviation stakeholders.

However, the new regulation should be seen as a stepping stone. The drone community has still not reached its objective: simple & rapid access to all classes of airspace to conduct safe drone operations. Many challenges remain at European level [e.g. UTM/U-space & related flight services and integrating them into the existing air traffic management system; the required standards for the “Open” & “Specific” categories; the required “standard scenarios” (taking the JARUS guidelines into account); mutual recognition of remote pilot licenses; everything concerning the “Certified” category; urban air mobility and related matters; et cetera). In addition, there are still some critical technology bottlenecks that have to be tacked (e.g. “Detect & Avoid” & “Geo-Limitation”)].

At national level the remaining challenges include: transitioning from national rules & regulations to the new EU regulation (and finding the required human & financial resources to do so within the required period); harmonizing the national implementation approaches to zoning (including cross-border zoning); drone registration; making SORA understandable & useable; remote drone identification; remote pilot training & qualification & examination (taking the JARUS guidelines on remote pilot competency into account and aiming at mutual recognition); flight school qualification & licensing; enforcement and involvement of the various required authorities (police, municipalities, airports). All of this will require significant national efforts.

In other words, the European drone community should not think that the work is over. The next big challenges are implementing the regulation in the EU Member States and sorting out U-Space. During this implementation period, we should not loose sight of the necessity to harmonize the national approaches of the EU Member States. All drone community stakeholders (public & private) should implicate themselves and contribute. Most of the aforementioned challenges will be addressed at the upcoming RPAS 2019 conference in Brussels, Belgium on 2-4 July 2019.

At both European and national level, continued cooperation and coordination amongst all the stakeholders will be essential, if we want to make it possible for the drone community to finally be able to say: «Yes, we can».