Believe it or not the number of rules in the IR and DR on certified aircraft and operations are much less. This is because essentially anything to be certified must meet the same applicable rules and requirements set for manned aircraft which have already been established and therefore these are just referenced rather than repeated.

Which aircraft and operations fall into the certified category?

The drone has dimension of 3 m or more and is designed to be operated over assemblies of people
The drone is designed for transporting people
The drone is designed for the purpose of transporting dangerous goods and requiring a high level of robustness to mitigate the risks for third parties in case of an accident

It should be noted that certified aircraft don’t necessarily have to be flow in certified operations. That is, flights in the specific category may have a degree of risk that can only be mitigated if they use a Certified aircraft. In this scenario, the drone is certified but the operation is specific. The drone must feature the technical capability dictated by the requirements of the specific operation (these would be set out in the OA or STS)

What rules apply to certified aircraft?

A UAS subject to certification shall comply with the applicable requirements set out in:

(EU) No 748/2012 (airworthiness and environmental certification of aircraft, their parts, products, appliances and certification of design and production organisations)
(EU) 2015/640 (additional airworthiness specifications for a given type of operations)
(EU) No 1321/2014 (continuing airworthiness of aircraft and approval of organisations and personnel involved in these tasks)

In addition to the above, all certified unmanned aircraft must be registered with the state registration system. Details to be recorded include manufacturer's name, designation of the unmanned aircraft; serial number; full name, address, email address and telephone number of the natural or legal person under whose same the unmanned aircraft is registered. The same can be said for the operator of the certified aircraft.

What rules apply to certified operations?

Operations subject to certification shall be subject to the applicable operational requirements laid down in:

(EU) No 923/2012 of 26 September 2012 laying down the common rules of the air and operational provisions regarding services and procedures in air navigation
(EU) No 965/2012 of 5 October 2012 laying down technical requirements and administrative procedures related to air operations
(EU) No 1332/2011 of 16 December 2011 laying down common airspace usage requirements and operating procedures for airborne collision avoidance

In essence, operators and aircraft must have a certification and remote pilots will require official licenses. Unlike the current CAA Permissions for Commercial Operations, these will be Licenses like manned aircraft pilots hold.

Small Print: These posts are a summary only, include my personal interpretation and are not intended to be a replacement for reading the actual rules.

As I said previously, the rules that apply are determined by which category you fall into, so the aim of this post is to help work out which drones/operations fall into which.

Open Category

My current feeling is that this is the most well defined, documented and understood category. I also think this is where the majority of hobbyists and even some commercials (by today’s standards) will operate. Essentially if your drone and operation are compliant with the following then you fall into the Open Category:

Drone design is Compliant with the Delegated Regulation, Privately Built, or Placed on Market < 1 July 2022
< 25kg Maximum Take Off Mass
Remain a safe distance from people and do not overfly assemblies
VLOS (*caveat for follow-me or observer usage)
< 120m / 400ft Height (**caveat for obstacles and Model Gliders)
Not carrying dangerous goods or dropping materials
No autonomous flight

To expand on some of the Caveats.:

* for certain aircraft and operations in the Open Category the regulations allow flight of up to 50m from the Remote Pilot in “Follow-Me” mode OR when having an Observer situated alongside the Remote Pilot you may delegate VLOS to the observer so you can focus on the camera view.

** for flights within 15m of an obstacle you may fly higher than 400ft if you have permission from the owner of the obstacle and remain within 15m of that obstacle. But my understanding is that VLOS must still be maintained.

That’s the Open Category, in a nutshell. There are a further three sub-categories but I’ll go into these separately as these determine the rules that apply to each specific flight.

Specific Category

For those operations that site outside of the Open Category but not complex enough to sit in the Certified Category will be classed as Specific. The measures required to ensure safe flight are determined by a risk assessment. These risk assessments may be specific to your operation OR they may be based on standard scenarios already risk assessed. If using your own risk assessment you’ll need an Operational Authorisation (OA) from the UK CAA (caveat for Model Aircraft Clubs and Associations)***. If using a standard scenario (that has already been risk assessed and publised by the commission) then you only need to submit evidence and a declaration of compliance to those rules to the UK CAA.****.

In addition to the Standard Scenarios, the UK CAA are also using the concept of PDRAs (Pre Defined Risk Assessments), these appear to have a similar aim of the standard scenarios, i.e. less paperwork to send to the regulator to review and approve but these will require an OA, rather than just a declaration. I’m not claiming here that a decleration will be “less work” than an OA because you will have to satisfy the CAA that your decleration meets the requirements.

Again, I won’t cover the standard scenarios or pre-defined risk assessment here but will cover in a later post.

To expand on some more Caveats.:

*** Model Aircraft Clubs can operate in the specific category with an Authorisation (as opposed to an OA) if they have their own framework in place for safe operations and they have submitted these to the UK CAA.

**** Another scheme exists in the new regulations called a LUC (Light UAS Operator Certificate). I’ve not read this in too much detail but my understanding is that LUC holders can essentially authorize there own flights, but the requirements to get this LUC are very comprehensive and require things like a safety management system, training, manuals, etc. so I can’t imagine too many operators holding this status.

Certified Category

Certified operations present the highest risk and as such have the strictest rules associated with it. Operators require certification, pilots require licenses and aircraft must be certified as per the Delegated Regulation. If the operation sits in any of the following then it must meet the certified requirements:

over assemblies of people
transport of people
carriage of dangerous goods, that may result in high risk for third parties in case of an accident.
a risk assessment determines that safety can only be maintained if the operation is certified

I hope that’s useful. My next post will look at more detail on the Open Category.

Small Print: These posts are a summary only, include my personal interpretation and is not intended to be a replacement for reading the actual rules.

Certified Operations Overview

Open vs Specific vs Certified