On 23 & 24 May 2012, the kick-off meeting of the new EUROCAE Working Group 93 on Light RPAS took place at EUROCONTROL headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. The meeting was attended by 56 regulatory and industry representatives (including Renaissance Consulting), as well as representative from the European Commission Directorate General Enterprise & Industry.
At this point in time, WG93 as participants from 20 countries have signed up, namely from: Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and USA.
The work of WG93 follows on from previous work which led to the development of EUROCAE ER-004 Vol 4 UAS for Visual Line of Sight Operations, which consolidated previous work carried out by the JAA/Eurocontrol UAV Task Force, as updated by European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
The EUROCAE WG93 on Lightweight RPAS (WG93) has a two year programme of work defined by the WG93 leadership to gather information, analyse it and make recommendations in a number of defined areas as regards the regulation of Remote Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS). These recommendations will ostensibly be for national Regulators to implement.
EUROCAE WG93 is tasked with developing:
a) a set of 12 guidance documents (WP01-WP12), which together make up a body of information and knowledge (WP 14), that will provide the National Aviation Authorities with insight and guidance on the key areas that must be addressed for the regulation of RPAS, initially operating within Visual Line of Sight (VLOS). These guidelines will be produced in a single document describing various generic VLOS scenario cases in the context of the application of RPAS to specific operational areas (see Annex 2). The airworthiness and operational characteristics of RPAS within these scenarios are to be explained, and conclusions and recommendations drawn up relative to the path that is
suggested for adoption by National Aviation Authorities to enable VLOS RPAS Operations in any given context.
b) a document supplying a preliminary view on Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) operations (WP14), an area that subsequently will need to be addressed in depth.
Agustin Arjonilla (Renaissance Consulting Managing Director) was appointed leader of WP1 VLOS Scenarios. The objective of this WP is to produce a EUROCAE report, focusing on standard scenarios for Visual Line of Sight operations (VLOS) for Light RPA. The report shall provide a description of the most likely scenarios for VLOS operations, covering UAS operations of various types and in various locations (rural, urban, maritime etc) within the limits of visual range conditions. This will result in the production of several documents each focused on a defined operational segment. Each segment will require its own OSED, SPR and Interop or equivalent description (published as a single report) and will provide updates to the common architectural and functional baseline.
