[Peetwo]

A strange dichotomy -

In a relatively good news story for Skates, the proposed new rule set for drones has generally been endorsed by the affected industry stakeholders and has even received international praise as a model for other NAA's to adopt, including the FAA.

Commercial drones cut through red tape


The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has announced the relaxation of rules for the commercial use of small airborne drones and other remotely piloted aircraft.

The Authority said commercial operators of the aircraft would no longer need to obtain a number of regulatory approvals, including an operator’s certificate and a remote pilot licence.

CASA said the move would cut regulatory costs for operators by thousands of dollars, save time and reduce paperwork.

It said the changes, to take effect in late September, would apply to remotely piloted aircraft with a 2kg maximum take-off weight used in commercial operations.

CASA relaxes rules for operators

CASA said operators would simply need to notify the Authority that they intended to use very small remotely piloted aircraft for commercial flights according to a set of standard operating conditions.

It said these mandatory conditions included flying only in day visual line of sight, below 120 m, keeping more than 30 m away from other people, flying more than 5.5 km from controlled aerodromes and not operating near emergency situations.

CASA said it would provide an easy-to-use online notification system.

It said the package of changes would also permit private landholders to carry out a range of activities on their own land without the need for approvals from CASA.

The Authority said these would include remotely piloted aircraft up to 25 kg in weight where no money was paid for flights.

Director of Aviation Safety at CASA, Mark Skidmore said the changes to the remotely piloted aircraft regulations maintained appropriate safety standards while cutting red tape.

“While safety must always come first, CASA’s aim is to lighten the regulatory requirements where we can,” Mr Skidmore said.

 

John Goglia via Forbes - Australia Adopts Micro Drone Rules; Why Can't US?  

Just days before the FAA is scheduled to announce recommendations from a micro drone task force (coincidentally, I’m sure, timed for April Fool’s day), Australia joins the US’s closest neighbors to the north and south in issuing simplified, risk-based regulations for commercial operations of micro UAS.  The weight-based categories adopted by the Australians, similar to those of Mexico and Canada, minimize the most burdensome commercial requirements (including pilot license requirements) for drones weighing 2 kilograms (4.4 pounds) or less.  According to the preface to the rule changes, these changes are intended to provide “greater flexibility and responsiveness in a rapidly evolving area.”

The new rules, which become effective in September of this year, require commercial operators to notify the Civil Aviation Safety Authority – the equivalent of the FAA - rather than obtaining a time-consuming and expensive unmanned operator permit or drone operator license.  In order to take advantage of the micro drone rule, commercial operators would have to meet the same operational restrictions as hobby flyers:

1. Operate the drone within visual line-of-sight,
   
   
2. Operate at or below 400 feet above ground level by day,
   
   
3. Operate no closer than 30 meters (150 feet) from non-participating persons,
   
   
4. Not operate in restricted or prohibited airspace, populous areas or within 3 nautical miles of the movement area of a controlled airport,
   
   
5. Not operate over fire, police or other emergency operation without approval and
   
   
6. Operate only one drone at a time.
   
   

As I have written about in the past, different rules for hobby and commercial operators of micro UAS don’t make sense from a safety perspective.  I believe risk-based weight categories – including a micro drone category – with operational restrictions such as adopted by the Australians would afford a safe yet flexible approach to this rapidly changing, technological field.  In the US, it would legalize the thousands of operators who are flying 3 and 4 pound drones for compensation or for business purposes.  Legalizing these operations would allow these operators to come out of the shadows and operate openly without fear of FAA prosecution. 

    
Maybe because this is a rapidly growing industry sector with a multitude of possible innovative applications, like in agriculture for example - Farm drones clear red tape; or maybe it is because it is a reasonably new, developing rule set and therefore a relatively conflict (with industry) free zone, but it is fascinating the obvious different mindset and attitude to other sectors of the industry (see Oliver's latest in the CASA monthly missive - HERE)  
 
Couple of quotes:

Skidmore - CASA’s regulatory philosophy provides the opportunity for future regulations like CASR Part 102–commercial and large operations – to be risk based, graduated and proportionate, and able to consider reasonable alternative approaches in fulfilling regulatory requirements, as long as they do not compromise safety.
 
Goglia - "..Australia joins the US’s closest neighbours to the north and south in issuing simplified, risk-based regulations for commercial operations of micro UAS..." 

Skidmore - “While safety must always come first, CASA’s aim is to lighten the regulatory requirements where we can,”

Although the proof will obviously be in the pudding, there are some keywords that have now entered the regulator's vernacular, with at least their proposed regulation of RPAs (CASR Part 101 & 102), which should reflect positively on the Skates supposed adopted new regulatory philosophy for CASA.

However compare that to the AAAA 29 February 2016 submission to the proposed NPRM for CASR Part 138:

Summary

AAAA believes that significant additional work is required by CASA before the Part 138
proposed regulations will be fit for purpose and will not significantly damage the industry.

AAAA believes there is clearly a need for an independent review of the proposed Part 138, with special focus on the application of the Forsyth Report recommendations regarding regulatory development and the DAS Directive 01/2015.

AAAA fully supports the need for a Part 138 and also strongly supports the need for Part 138 to work together with Part 137 to provide a clear pathway for aerial work operations.

However, while the classification of operations approach in Part 138 is represented as a significant simplification, when the detailed definitions are considered, it is actually a more prescriptive approach than under current regulations.

While this is not an insurmountable issue and to some degree is inevitable in attempting to match operational rules to significantly different operations, the problem is largely compounded by the prescriptive rather than outcome-based approach in proposed regulations. This appears to be strongly indicative of CASA’s ‘old’ approach to regulating industry and is now inappropriate.

There is a considerable ‘missed opportunity’ in the proposed draft in that it does not deliver a broad simplification of aerial work operations.

The proposed rules also suffer from a lack of detail regarding supporting administrative
approaches, including the relationship between the classification of operations, the details of the Part 138 proposed certificate and accompanying operational specification, and the requirements for an operations manual.

AAAA is particularly concerned with the proposed consequential amendments to Part 137 which have not been consulted with AAAA, and the introduction of performance requirements for rotorcraft that are prescriptive, will have massive cost impacts for industry and do not appear to have been adequately considered in the regulatory development process.

With the proposed Part 138, CASA appears to be repeating many of the errors identified in the Forsyth Report.

&..sadly the following sounds very familiar : 

Key Issues


Lack of application of DAS Directive 01/2015



AAAA is deeply concerned with the lack of application of DAS Directive 01/2015 -

especially for rotary performance requirements.


The lack of a clearly articulated, written safety case, based on real accident and incident data as a starting point, is problematical for the general approach of Part 138 and especially the new proposal to include helicopter performance accountability and requirements.


AAAA is strongly of the view that the current Part 138 should be reviewed independently to ensure the application of DAS Directive 01/2015 to the rule set.

If such a review cannot identify clear safety cases or substantiate the cost of such a significant change such as the introduction of helicopter performance requirements, then those sections should be abolished.

..Many earlier discussions of various CASA Part 138 and Part 133 working groups identified the possibility of true simplification of the regulation of many aerial work operations (such as simple sling loads and survey) by the reliance on the licencing and competency provisions of Part 61 and the provision of an Acceptable Means of Compliance from CASA that would describe one way - but not the only way - that the operations could be conducted.


This approach was attractive to industry because it removed the need for each company to create their own approach to simple tasks, and thereby removed the need to include such simple operations in the Operations Manual and to have it approved by CASA at considerable cost and time delay.


Such a standardised and simplified approach had the potential to address a lot of the issues now incorporated into Part 138, but appears to have been unilaterally abandoned by CASA...

& finally.. Leopard & spots - Prescriptive vs OBR:

A comparison between the current Part 137 drafting style and that of the proposed Part 138 regulations makes it clear that CASA is not seeking to apply the less prescriptive style of regulations identified in the Forsyth Report and accepted by the Government as policy.


Part 138 seeks to impose a range of very prescriptive requirements onto operations. Again, this sits at odds with the Forsyth recommended approach to three tiers of regulation and an outcome based approach to rule-making.


A fundamental challenge for CASA remains and has been highlighted by the published work of the CASA Board and the DAS - CASA needs to stop being the ‘big R’ regulator and start working with industry towards simpler, more cost-effective regulations firmly based on real safety management.


At its simplest, this means CASA should reconsider regulations that seek to regulate activities that are already covered by other CASA regulations - including licencing and competency provisions - many of which are aerial work activities.


In detail, it means that the current Part 138 proposed regulations are too prescriptive and should be redrafted to be more outcome focussed.

Hmm...on second thoughts I think I can see why Oliver Skidmore-twist is quite comfortable flapping his gums and big noting himself on RPA regulation, there is no-one quite so formidable as a Phil Hurst or Ken Cannane to argue the toss with facts, history and experience - choc frog to Aerial App Phil


MTF..P2