JARUS (Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems) is a global grouping of national aviation authorities developing and proposing regulations for Remotely Piloted Aircraft Systems (RPAS). Several important decisions were taken at the JARUS plenary meeting, which took place in Helsinki, Finland on 15-19 September 2014.The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) will take a more active role in RPAS regulation and the governance of JARUS, as was witnessed by the election by the plenary meeting attendees of Eric Sivel of EASA as the new Chairman of JARUS. Christopher Swider of the FAA, USA was elected as Vice-Chair.
During this plenary meeting, the JARUS members also agreed on a concept of operations which defines how and when these new types of aircraft should be regulated by applying a flexible and proportionate approach. For example, it was agreed that the simplest RPAS and their operations would not to be regulated at all.
It was also decided to create a JARUS Secretariat to support the group’s work. This Secretariat will be established in the offices of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) in Brussels, Belgium. The nomination of Mike Lissone of EUROCONTROL was confirmed to head the Secretariat. The plenary meeting attendees also decided to increase interaction between JARUS and industry, and to actively support the work of ICAO in the field of RPAS in the ICAO RPAS Panel.
Ron van de Leijgraaf (Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment, Directorate General for Mobility & Transport, Aviation Department, Aviation Safety Unit, The Netherlands), the initiator of JARUS and its first Chairman, was wholeheartedly thanked by Pekka Henttu (Director General of CAA, Finland & chair of the EASA Management Board) for his initiative to create JARUS and for bringing it up to the important global position this organisation now has.