On 13 October 2011 Aermatica organized the start-up meeting of the Italian Small Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA) Working group, at ARMAERO (General Directorate of Aeronautical Armaments, Italian Ministry of Defense) in Rome, Italy.
More than 70 people, representing regulatory authorities, military authorities, institutions and companies attended the workshop entitled “Small Remotely Piloted Aircraft, The Italian Community comes to life”. The event started with a welcome speech by the Lt Gen Civalleri.
The event featured, amongst others, speeches by the following:
- Peter van Blyenburgh, President of UVS International (by video);
- Ron van de Leijgraaf, Chairman of EUROCAE Working Group 73, Sub Group on Smaller RPA (by video);
- Carmine Cifaldi, Director of ENAC (Italian CAA), Aeronautics Product Certification Department;
- T. Col A. Grasso, ARMAEREO, Chairman of NATO STANAG 4703 working group on Light UAV system airworthiness requirements.
In the context of European initiatives concerning Small Remotely Piloted Aircraft, the Italian Community present declared its willingness to participate in an organized way in the international rules development process.
During the workshop Aermatica launched the creation of a national working group for a proactive and homogeneous contribution to the EUROCAE Working Group 73 tasks, and also made a proposal for the foundation of a National Italian Association to represent interests of this whole new industrial sector.
[Paolo Marras is Chief Technical Officer, Aermatica, Italy – Ed.]