A major milestone in the regulation of operations of Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in Europe was achieved on 10th October 2019 with the publication of the Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance materials (GM) for the Regulation on UAS operations in the open and specific category.
With the publication, EASA will support UAS operators and Member States in complying with the adopted EU regulation. The document includes the description of a risk assessment methodology to evaluate the danger of an UAS operation and to identify mitigation measures to make the operation safe.
The methodology for conducting a risk assessment of the operations in the specific category is called SORA (Specific Operation Risk Assessment) and offers a very structured approach to evaluate all aspects and identify mitigations and safety objectives.
In addition, the first pre-defined risk assessment (PDRA) will assist operators when applying for an authorisation in the specific category for special UAS operations, such as the ones conducted beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS), using visual observes, over sparsely populated areas or at very low level.
Additional pre-defined risk assessments will be developed in the coming years together with the national aviation authorities and UAS operators to cover the most common operations conducted in Europe.
