[Peetwo]

Truth or Dare for Oliver??

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.

Well in today's Oz Binger has found a bloke who wishes to challenge Oliver on the above statement because he doesn't agree :

Drone pro Andrew Chapman challenges CASA over safety regulations

• Mitchell Bingemann
  
• The Australian
  
• April 8, 2016 12:00AM
  

Commercial drone operator ­Andrew Chapman has a simple dare for anyone from the nation’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority following its moves to deregulate the operation of drones weighing less than two kilograms.

“We challenge anyone who says a 2kg drone is harmless to stand in a field while we fly one into them at speed, or sit in a ­helicopter hovering nearby while we fly a 2kg drone into its rotor blades,” Mr Chapman, a ­director of commercial drone operator Australian UAV, told The Aus­tralian.

“We think CASA is setting a dangerous precedent by this relaxation of the regulations because it will only allow people to flout the current rules and cause serious damage to people or aircraft. So we want to challenge CASA and see them put their own safety on the line to prove that this isn’t a bad idea.”

Mr Chapman’s dare comes a week after CASA amended rules around drone use to exempt commercial operators of remotely ­piloted aircraft (RPA) weighing less than 2kg from requiring an Unmanned Aircraft Operators Certificate, which can cost thousands of dollars to acquire.

The amendments, which come into effect in September, will still require operators to obey standard flight rules, which are not to fly within 5.5km of an airport, not above 400 feet, not within 30m of buildings, railways or vehicles, and to always have visual line of sight of the drone.

It will also be a requirement for operators to notify CASA of their identity and their proposed operations at least five days before flights begin. Penalties of up to $9000 may apply for a breach.

CASA said it amended the ­regulations to recognise the dif­ferent safety risks posed by different types and sizes of remotely piloted aircraft and that the rules were based on research showing small drones weighing between 100 grams and 2kg had low kinetic energy.

“When flown responsibly under standard operating conditions, these very low weight remotely piloted aircraft pose a relatively low risk of harming people or property on the ground,” said CASA spokesman Peter Gibson.

“The standard operating conditions means that remotely piloted aircraft operated in the very low weight category will not be able to be flown in large areas of Australia’s major cities due to the three nautical mile restriction around controlled aerodromes.”

But Mr Chapman said the changes would encourage a drastic increase of drone flights by ­unlicensed and uninsured operators with little knowledge of the rules that govern airspace and ­aviation safety.

“CASA’s own research paper from 2013 states that a 2kg RPA at 10m per second is predicted to cause skull fracture, even when impacting with its flat side. This research has a very conservative impact model and drones are typically flying much faster than 10m a second, so by their own research a skull fracture is very likely, if not a more serious injury,” Mr Chapman said.

“Trained and licensed operators know where they can and can’t fly, the dangers involved, and the risk to their licence if they bend or break the rules. So it is most likely these collisions will be with these sub-2kg aircraft flown by amateur operators.”

Mr Chapman said it was imperative that CASA reassess the amendments and lower the weight category for excluded remote piloted aircraft to 500 grams or maintain the requirement for a basic remote pilot licence.

He said this would ensure people flying drones weighing less than 2kg had basic training on aviation safety.

CASA said it would not be taking Mr Chapman up on his dare, saying “aviation safety is all about the identification and management of risks”.

“CASA has carefully studied the risks associated with remotely piloted aircraft operations and it is clear there are much lower risks associated with the operation of very small remotely piloted aircraft when they are operated in the standard RPA operating conditions,” Mr Gibson said.

“Thus it is appropriate to have a different level of safety regulations for sub-2kg category of remotely piloted aircraft. Larger remotely piloted aircraft pose higher risks so they attract different regulatory requirements.”

Given the recent history of CASA persecution of individuals who dare to debate the big "R" regulator on their nonsensical, virtually unusable rule set ,it could be said Mr Chapman is either extremely naïve or very brave..  
MTF...P2