The Drones Community Steering Group, established a few months ago, has the task of consulting the European Aviation Safety Agency on current and future regulatory projects and supporting the work of the EASA's UAS Technical Body (TeB). UAV DACH is represented in the D.CSTG by Deputy Chairman Oliver Lichtenstein.
At the committee's most recent meeting in Brussels, the agenda included planning and coordinating specific topics and projects to be addressed by a number of activity groups. This approach allows the substantive work to be structured around specific issues and promotes dialogue between the UAS industry and European regulators.
In addition, discussions were held on how to make the transition from SORA 2.0 to version 2.5 of the Specific Operations Risk Assessment, recently implemented by EASA, as efficient and smooth as possible. From the industry's point of view, it is positive that ongoing procedures can still be decided under the provisions of SORA 2.0, as there is ultimately no difference between the two SORA versions in terms of the level of safety to be guaranteed.
In addition to intensive debates on specific issues relating to the future of commercial unmanned aviation and the core tasks of the D.CSTG, the two-day meeting also provided time to discuss other important issues for the UAS industry in Europe. Among other things, the contribution of UAV DACH to the EASA's occurrence reporting data collection was appreciated, and the European Aviation Safety Agency presented the latest changes in the area of the IAM Innovation Hub. The online platform was created to support the establishment of an active and well-connected European ecosystem in the field of Innovative Air Mobility (IAM). With the fifth update, additional support for UAS operations in Europe has now been integrated into the platform, such as options for determining population density in order to assess the ground risk posed by operational scenarios.