European Commission UAS Panel’s 3rd Workshop – UAS Safety

The third workshop in a five-part series of European Commission (EC) UAS Panel Workshops run jointly by the European Commission’s DG Mobility & Transport (MOVE) and DG Enterprise (ENTR) on the topic of insertion of UAS into European controlled airspace, will take place at Eurocontrol headquarters, 96 rue de la Fusée 96, Brussels, Belgium on 19 October 2011. The “chef-de-file” of this workshop will be Michael Smethers (CAA, UK), the chairman of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)management board.

The workshop will address “UAS Safety” aspects, in particular what safety regulatory initiatives at a European level are required to remove obstacles to the development of the UAS sector in Europe, in order to allow it to meet its full potential.

The topics that will be covered include:

1. Is it better to have national, harmonised, or common rules for small (below 150 kg) UAS ? And in case of common rules, who should issue the certificate ?
2. How to regulate UAS operations?
3. How to regulate flight crews?
4. Is EU action appropriate for governmental non-military UAS (police, customs, civil protection, etc)?
5. Is there a minimum threshold for technical and procedural aviation rules?
6. Do we need to improve UAS safety data collection and analysis?

The overall objective of the workshops is to gather information on how to remove obstacles to the use of UAS in Europe.

The work at the 3^rd workshop will take due account of the conclusions and recommendations of the 1^st and 2^nd EC UAS Panel workshops and pave the way for the 4^thWorkshop in view of the close connection between safety, insertion into airspace and the societal dimension. The European Commission, Eurocontrol, EASA, ECAC, European Defence Agency (EDA), European Space Policy Institute (ESPI), Frontex, UVS International, UK Border Surveillance, industry experts, potential users and other interested stakeholders will work together on preparing for the safe use of UAS in non-segregated European airspace.

The EC welcomes written contributions (reference documents & opinion papers) from aviation rulemaking bodies, industry representatives and other stakeholders for this workshop. Such contributions are to be sent to both entr-uas@ec.europa.eu [joint email address for Caterine Ebah-Moosa (DG Enterprise) & Umberto Rossi (DG MOVE)] and Filippo Tomasello (EASA) at filippo.tomasello@easa.europa.eu.

Persons desiring to attend this workshop (admittance is free) are requested to register on-line here.

Admittance to the workshop will be at the discretion of the EC and will be limited by the capacity of the meeting room.