On Friday 13 March the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) published a proposal for a regulation to regulate the co-habitation in the same airspace of manned and unmanned aircraft, more commonly known as "drones".
"In perspective of the foreseen increase of manned air traffic in the years to come and the proliferation of unmanned aircraft operations, hazard to air traffic, persons and property will also increase if not addressed through appropriate mitigating measures", EASA says.
Its proposal for a 'high level regulatory framework for 'U-Space' - the airspace directly accessible to all citizens (see EUROPE 11674/16) - is mainly based on three objectives.
The first is to enable manned and unmanned aircraft to operate safely, in other words, to avoid collisions and mitigate air and ground risks. The setting up of a Common Information Service (CIS) between the various participants in U-Space is one element of the response.
Another "key objective" is to create a competitive European market for 'U-Space' services in order to attract the necessary commercial investment, support operational and technical developments and provide fair access to all airspace users.
Finally, the proposal intends to meet environmental, security and privacy requirements. And this, "while offering enough flexibility to allow the UAV industry to evolve", says the EASA.
On this point, the latter also states that the protection of privacy is considered a major threat to the development of the UAV market, "because their operations are and can be conducted closer to the ground and therefore closer to people".
Genesis and finality of the text. This proposal, drawn up in 15 months, follows a Draft Opinion drawn up with the responsible services of the European Commission and on the basis of contributions from a working group made up of representatives of the Member States and experts from Eurocontrol and the SESAR Joint Undertaking (see EUROPE 11771/3).
It proposes a first set of what EASA considers to be the necessary minimum rules. "They are to be complemented later with further provisions enabling a more mature state of airspace integration", the document states.
The European Commission will use it as a technical basis for preparing an EU regulation. The adoption of such a text by the European executive is expected in the winter of 2020, according to EASA.
To view the proposal: http://bit.ly/3b12JSJ (Original version in French by Agathe Cherki)