The civil RPAS market [commercial; non-commercial (corporate, research); governmental non-military] is growing throughout the world, which means that the quantity of approved & authorised commercial RPAS operators is steadily increasing.
The economic viability of a growing number of civil RPAS applications is being evaluated by current & potential RPAS operators.
Initial RPAS regulations are now in place in: Australia, Canada, Czech Rep., France, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, UK.
Initial regulations are in preparation in: Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Russian Fed., South Africa, Spain, Turkey, USA.
None of the currently applicable regulations are harmonised.
Civil RPAS operations are being facilitated by a growing number of national or regional aviation authorities by granting (experimental) flight authorisations – e.g. in: Argentina, Chile, Denmark, Hong Kong, Latvia, Mexico, Norway, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, U.A.E.
There are currently over 1000 approved & authorised commercial RPAS operators in Europe.
Illegal RPAS operations, not properly insured RPAS operations & operations by unqualified RPAS operators (in countries without rules & regulations) will become a growing risk for the entire community.
In view of the aforementioned, as well as the implementation of the European RPAS Roadmap, UVS International came to the conclusion that the critical topics of RPAS-related responsibility, liability & insurance should be urgently addressed on a European and international level.
Consequently, UVS International has started up Study Group 01 – RPAS Responsibility, Liability & Insurance. The Terms of Reference of this study group have been drawn up by a multi-disciplinary team of experts. Here are the links to principal documents concerning this study group:
– Terms of Reference (ToR): http://goo.gl/5apgcW
– Multi-disciplinary ToR Team: http://goo.gl/OwURbY
– Online participation submission form: http://goo.gl/5ql3xG
All interested parties are invited to complete the online participation submission form.
For questions & additional information contact Peter van Blyenburgh at pvb@uvs-international.org
Notes:
An RPAS operator is a company or organisation conducting or planning to conduct aerial operations with RPAS.
Approved RPAS operators are operators approved by the national or regional aviation authority in countries with regulation in place.
Authorised RPAS operators are operators in countries without regulation in place that have received flight permits from the national aviation authority on a case-to-case basis.