[Peetwo]

DW 1 update: CASA - "Your busted" & BrisVegas Hansard. 

Courtesy Spacial Source today... :

Fun police issue drone fines for Easter egg hunt, wedding videos
By Anthony Wallace on 10 July, 2017 in Unmanned

Almost any wedding you attend these days will be accompanied by the high pitch buzz of a drone trying to capture the romantic moment.

However, often such activity is done in breach of the regulations set out by authorities. In Australia, the responsible body is beginning to issue thousands of dollars in fines to crack down on the pilots in breach of the regulations for using drones to film occasions like weddings and even Easter egg hunts.

In Australia, Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) administers the rules and associated penalties for remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS, or drones). CASA today announced details of some of the behaviour that is being witnessed, and—in some cases—penalised.

One drone pilot was fined $900 for putting at risk a group of children at a Canberra Easter egg hunt by flying a drone flown at a height from which if the drone malfunctioned it would not have been able to clear the area.

Another pilot has also been fined $1440 for flying in Sydney Harbour restricted airspace and flying within 30 metres of people.

The third announced by CASA was $900 fine for hazardous flying at and near guests at a wedding in regional NSW. All three drone pilots paid the penalties issued by CASA.

Drones/RPAS/UAS: Surveying’s new fact or another passing fad?

In September 2016, CASA passed regulations that allowed more people to fly RPAS without qualifications, subject to a number of rules. Under these terms, operators are not allowed to fly aircraft over two kilograms; within 30 metres of people; in restricted airspace; or, beyond line of sight.

Getting your tech-savvy relative to film your wedding with a drone, therefore, may make your wedding an even more expensive affair. However, if the drone is being flown by a qualified operator or on private property, the operator may be able to perform more advanced flying, subject to additional terms.

Admittedly, it is not easy to determine where or how you are able to fly. To make it easier, CASA recently launched a free drone safety app which maps restricted air spaces and other operating guidelines. CASA’s website also has a host of resources detailing the regulation for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.

CASA’s Director of Aviation Safety, Shane Carmody, said fines will continue to be issued where people break the drone safety rules.

“The rules protect people, property and aircraft from drones,” Mr Carmody said.
“If you fly a drone it is your responsibility to fly by the rules and stay safe at all times.
“Every drone pilot should download CASA’s drone safety app, which will help them fly safely.”

For those interested and/or monitoring the Drone Wars inquiry, the Hansard for the BrisVegas public hearing has finally been released (Ps thank you DPS... ):

 Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee
(Senate-Wednesday, 28 June 2017)

Some extracts of note:

VIPA:

Capt. Lyons : Thank you for the opportunity of consolidating our submission, which you are no doubt familiar with at this stage. There are a couple of things I would like to reiterate from that submission. Since it has been put in, I have been trying to elicit from the ATSB some information relating to statistics, essentially for the last few years, for the increase in the number of near misses or reportable incidents. I had a bit of difficulty getting accurate information from them, but the most relevant I have come up with so far is the document, which you are probably familiar with, A safety analysis of remotely piloted aircraft systems for 2012 to 2016. It has an array of very interesting statistics in it, but I question the basis of some of their analysis.

It is important in this overall subject to understand or to see the issues from an airline pilot's perspective and to appreciate some of the issues relating to operating a large aircraft—and also from the point of view of the operators. One of the matters that the report, and also CASA, has alluded to is the impact. What happens if an airliner is impacted? To say that it might lose an engine but that it can fly on one engine is palpably ridiculous. If an airliner is impacted by a UAV, irrespective of the size, there is going to be potentially significant damage.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: You have obviously heard this said.

Capt. Lyons : I have heard that said in a number of places.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: It was given in evidence.

Capt. Lyons : To that point, I raise the questioned with the ATSB—and I stress that it is a question, because I know there is an ongoing investigation and there is no preliminary report out. Recently there was an event in Sydney where a China Eastern A330 on departure from Sydney had sustained engine damage; there was significant structural damage. I raised the question: could it have been a UAV impacting that aircraft, because the damage that is shown from that, and I have got some pictures to illustrate it—

CHAIR: So you are tabling some photos, some evidence there?

Capt. Lyons : Yes, I will tabled that with it. To me, that damage, from a layman's point of view, appears inconsistent with a fan blade departure from the engine. I have asked the question—

CHAIR: Sorry, Captain Lyons, just so you can assist those of us who have no aviation experience, although Senator O'Sullivan has vast aviation experience, just tell us why you said 'blade damage'?

Capt. Lyons : If a fan blade separates from an engine, it is likely to do serious damage to the engine and go through the engine, causing greater damage. That damage on that engine seems to me inconsistent with a fan blade failure, and I postulate that it may have been hit by a UAV. Contained in that safety analysis report are a number of statistics that say there are a number of reports associated with departure tracks, arrival tracks and UAVs being reported above 1,000 feet in that particular controlled airspace. We are obviously concerned about the prevalence of these things in that airspace and the potential damage they could do. That could be catastrophic. But to put out a report that says, 'It's okay; you've got another engine', is palpably ridiculous from a safety point of view.

CHAIR: And who said that?

Capt. Lyons : It has been said by—CASA based their safety case on it, and also the ATSB allude to that.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: You might remember there was evidence given at our estimates hearing to this effect.

CHAIR: Yes. That was a loaded question. We were treated with less contempt, actually. We were treated like, 'Why are you worried about it, because we've not had a strike'. That was from CASA.

Capt. Lyons : From an airline perspective, and from a pilot's point of view, it is a very serious issue. It obviously is underlined by the whole safety thing, which is what airlines are all about. It is all about safety.

CHAIR: Captain Lyons, please continue, because we will have questions.

Capt. Lyons : Okay, from VIPA's perspective, we would like to see the reintroduction and reinforcement of regulation to try to control the use of RPAS and UAVs. We have suggested that the protected airspace boundaries be increased beyond the current five kilometres that is around airfields, but this also applies to both controlled and non-controlled airspace.

I also suggested in the submission that licensed operators be given some form of authority to help reinforce the situation, because clearly CASA is under-resourced and the exponential expansion of the number of UAVs in recent years has extended way outside their capability to be able to control them. There needs to be legislation to monitor and restrict the number of UAVs around.

CHAIR: All right, Captain Lyons, before I go to Senator O'Sullivan I want to come back to this photo that you have tabled, this China Eastern Airlines A330. It would be really interesting to hear from the AMEs and LAMEs, I think it is—I apologise if I have it wrong, but the aircraft mechanics—as to how regularly they see this sort of damage. You have written to the ATSB, did you say, with a question?

Capt. Lyons : I have asked the question: did they consider that that was a possibility? It is really important to put this in perspective. It may well have been some mechanical failure within the engine. They do not know at this stage.

CHAIR: Sure. When did you write to them?

Capt. Lyons : Two weeks ago. And the response that I have had is that the matter is under investigation, and they cannot make a comment.

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Australian Certified UAV Operators:

CHAIR: An absolutely valuable part of this inquiry was the exhibition day we had in Dalby. It actually opened my eyes, because I have not been around drones. That is why I am keen to get the positive side of it. There is absolutely a role. There is no argument here, but I just needed to clarify that. That is why I want to hear the positive stories. The positive stories are that you are all trained, you are aware and you know what is going on. You represent people who have commercial interests—and that is fine.
But I cannot accept that someone can just walk into a retail outlet like JB Hi-Fi or Harvey Norman and get one. I go back to an example that I use all the time of being at the Hotel Grand in Kununurra. For those of us who know Kununurra, this is God's country. The Hotel Grand is less than a kilometre from the end of the runway, and I am watching junior and senior playing with their new toys whizzing around the swimming pool area—and this is before the inquiry started—and I am thinking, 'What is that thing?' And now I am thinking, thank God junior did not say to senor, 'Hey, Dad, how high can this thing go?'

Mr Mason : That is a natural reaction.

Mr Urli : We want a baseline industry in terms training certification and minimum knowledge. That is very, very important. It is like operating a small vehicle. You have to have exposure to the civil aviation regulations. For somebody to just tick a box to say, 'We'll fully comply with the civil aviation regulations,' and not understand the volume, content and history that goes behind that is significant.

CHAIR: Absolutely. I am not casting aspersions on the next generation, but if I had had one of them when I was growing up in Langford I would have wanted to know how high I could go with this thing.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Have you seen the terms of reference published by CASA in the last fortnight?

Mr Mason : Yes.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Do you think that they are in any way adequate to address the challenges?

CHAIR: This is the one on the napkin in the restaurant?

Senator O'SULLIVAN: That is right. This is the result of nine months of deliberation on their part to get these sophisticated terms of reference. Do you think there is any capacity within the scope of those terms of reference to address some of the challenges that you have identified in your submission?

Mr Mason : I do not believe so, no.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Well, you need to say so out loud, because we will.

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BUTLER, Professor Des, Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology

WHEELER, Mr Joseph, Principal/Managing Partner, International Aerospace Law & Policy Group

Mr Wheeler : Thank you for your indulgence and thank you for the opportunity to address this committee. I congratulate the senators and this committee for tackling such a challenging issue. I do have some introductory remarks I have prepared and welcome questions thereafter.

I would like to start by disclosing my various roles as noted in the submission. I am as a lawyer engaged issues facing pilots, passengers, remote pilots and, in time, the space industry and its proponents. I act as aviation legal counsel to the Australian Federation of Air Pilots, which is the largest professional association of airline pilots in the country by membership number. I am the national head of aviation law at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers. Through the Australian Air Line Pilots' Association, which you saw on Monday. I am a member of the legal committee of the International Federation of Airline Pilots Association, of IFALPA, which represents over 100,000 international pilot members and flight engineers and their professional interests. I am also a member of the Professional Government Affairs Committee of IFALPA. I also disclose that I previously acted for and am now appointed to the management committee of ACUO, whom you heard from this morning through Mr Urli and Mr Mason. I am also a regular commentator on aerolegal and aeropolitical affairs for The Australian in the aviation section.

The views I express today I believe are consonant with what AusALPA, IFALPA, ACUO and Maurice Blackburn have variously either put to this committee or have been referred to in submissions to the committee. That being said, I today appear for and on behalf of my practice, IALPG, guided only by a desire to preserve aviation safety through and with the assistance of law driven by well-considered policy.

I have some views to share on approaches to drone laws in this country, and the first is we need to go back to first principles and commit to a policy framework of integrated drone and manned aviation operations that ensures drone use will not degrade Australia's current enviable safety record. In short, Australia needs to figure out what it stands for in this space.

Following written declarations made in Europe in 2015—I am holding up the Riga Declaration made in the European Union—Europe set itself a goal of harmonisation now expressed in proposed model rules on drones backed by a concept they call U-Space, which clearly indicates Europe's direction. It wants safe and sustainable integration that should evolve gradually. Without agreement on more than the hollow or empty phrase of safety, we in Australia stand powerless to maximise the technology and progress that drones provide and are unprepared for the safety risks that inaction will bring to our backyards. I will come back to how I believe Australia should record its commitments.

The second thing is we need immediate urgent commonsense mechanisms in place. We need to slow the proliferation of reckless drone usage through better enforcement against misusers or criminal users of drones. We also need to roll back relaxations made in September last year that send a dangerous message from the air safety regulator that small drones are no-risk drones. This is not a question of impeding commercial freedoms or innovation but of sending the right message to the community: drones are not toys. Enforcement is not, simply, a matter of setting up standard operating procedures and threatening with fines; it requires a range of surveillance options coupled with a commitment to educate, discipline and deter.

Technologies like geofencing must be the subject of legislative airworthiness type restrictions on drone manufacturers to ensure that aircraft do not breach airspace they should not, but also to allow the regulator to implement monitoring to help them take corrective action. And why? Because it is irresponsible to let amateurs and children loose with powerful vehicles with no guidance other than to 'follow the rules'. Many do not appreciate the implications of breaching the rules—if they even know them or know where to find them. Regulating manufacturers allows for the preservation of compliance with the standard operating conditions. That cannot be guaranteed when left to those who are untrained in aviation. This approach has kept aviation safe and it should do the same for RPAS and drones.

The third thing I want to suggest today is urge the committee to make recommendations, to take a whole-of-government approach so views across government can inform and add to this challenging debate. This is needed, given the cut-through of issues that drones raise. Air safety is but one of them. There are import controls, security, including national security, privacy, insurance and liability, and international obligations of Australia as a party to the Chicago Convention. There are state, federal and local level enforcement options and questions that need to be addressed and should be addressed in any new fresh rethink or policy framework when we go back to a clean slate.

Fourthly, I would urge the committee to recommend as a minimum that CASA be charged in an appropriately binding way to prioritise the resolution of the drone legislative challenge. I suggest before the next 2018 update by the minister of Australia's airspace policy statement that that be done. This legislative policy statement is a reflection of our priorities and commitments on airspace management as a member of the international aviation community. Section 11A of the Civil Aviation Act requires CASA to exercise its powers consistent with that statement. The latest iteration was made after the consultation for the September rollbacks on CASA part 101, relaxing drone laws, but does not reflect any prioritisation of integrating unmanned aircraft systems safely or sustainably into Australian airspace.

I would suggest that this is where Mr Carmody's recent commitment—made in a comment to a newspaper a few days ago—'to make drone users part of the wider aviation community' should be recorded. Right now the statement says as its first government policy objective:

The Government considers the safety of passenger transport services as the first priority in airspace administration and CASA should respond quickly to emerging changes in risk levels for passenger transport operations.

Whether or not that policy has changed, I strongly believe that that commitment to the safety of fare-paying passengers in this country needs to be demonstrated strongly through tighter laws regulating drones, which represent the quintessential emerging change in risk levels for air travel in Australia.

By way of conclusion of my remarks, I hope it has been made clear that my views are centred around not only what the law says and does but also around what sort of a message it sends to drone users, the community in Australia and the international aviation community. Right now, our message is we are short-sighted and economically not safety focused. I implore this committee to send a message that our laws should not bend to concepts of red-tape reduction but rather facilitate safe and sustainable integration of drones into our airspace once a proper policy determination is made to do so and is defined and agreed upon.

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Senator O'SULLIVAN: Have either of you looked at the terms of reference that was recently published by CASA?

Mr Wheeler : I did see them. They were quite brief.

CHAIR: They only just came out.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: You need to be careful. There is a lot of effort—nine months of intellectual energy gone into the development of it. I think there is a general consensus. I would ask for your professional opinion. They are grossly inadequate deal with—even though they are a regulator, and they will say, 'Look, I really am going to go down this path'. But to do that, without having consideration about potential liabilities and insurance responses, would be irresponsible to say the least, I suspect. They have no capacity on their current terms of reference of being able to address most of the issues that both of you have provided to us today.

Mr Wheeler : Yes. I would say that is correct. I think it portrays a fact that this needs to be something that is beyond CASA's remit. CASA will always argue that their functions are set out in this act—the Civil Aviation Act—narrowly defined and that they are headed pre-eminently by safety. It is all well and good, but, as we have just discussed, this traverses more areas than safety and requires the thoughts of other people and some government direction, which is lacking at this time. That is also why I mention the Australia Airspace Policy Statement, which CASA has to be directed by. It is one of the means by which the government can say, 'This is what you need to do. This is our government policy objective. You need to assist us with fulfilling it....

...Senator O'SULLIVAN: Look, this might seem a burden, and you can crack me off if you like, but I am wondering whether the two of you could—and it is a burden—contemplate what the terms of reference for CASA probably should have looked like, in terms of the space of your expertise. I think we are even capable now of helping them draft the other elements of the questions we want answered—but in this area, given that they are already in the insurance space in one form or another. Anyway, take that on notice, and if we happen to get some correspondence we will feel blessed; if not, we will know that you are very busy.

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CHAIR: Mr Wheeler, in your opening statement you mentioned that CASA should roll back the regulations they changed. Can you go into that a little bit deeper? What is the big drama of rolling it back? What would it take?

Mr Wheeler : I do not believe that the genie is truly out of the bottle or that is a major thing in a legal sense. Yes, there are drones out there and there are operators using under two kilograms and up to 25 kilograms as landholders in the excluded category. That being said, the status quo before that was that there was licensing and training, but recreational operators could still use those drones in those categories. Not a great deal would change, except those barriers to commercial operation would be back. The risk that has been in place since September last year to Australia's air safety performance would be back to the level it was in September last year. You would not have heard of many, if any, commercial operations going awry in drones in Australia since 2002. In my view, it does not matter that the genie is out of the bottle. A repeal of that legislation could and should happen. Once that happens, the bigger picture should be looked at with a clean slate and a whole-of-government approach.

CHAIR: From your experience, would a click of a pen achieve that? We would not need to have Senate fights. Just so everyone out there understands that what you are suggesting is not so hard.

Mr Wheeler : I do not believe it is so hard. It just requires the wherewithal to pursue it—government support and the recommendation that it happen—and then it can be done.

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MANNING, Mr Michael John, Director, Drone Solutions

MARTIN, Associate Professor (Adj), Terrence, Queensland University of Technology
THYNNE, Mr John, Director, JT Aviation Consulting Pty Ltd

Mr Thynne : On that particular one, when I was running the CASA team and doing sector risk profiles for sectors of aviation, I did one on agricultural aviation as the test case. I got representatives from that side of the industry together and I sat down and said, 'Tell us what your hazards are; we're going to identify the hazards.' The very first one they said was impact with a drone. That was their highest risk and concern. We then went through and looked for history of events and that sort of stuff, and we found one event at that stage, in Victoria, where there had been a proximity event between an agricultural aircraft and a drone. That had occurred when the drone operator, a commercial operator, had submitted a NOTAM for his operation somewhere near Traralgon and the agricultural operator had seen the NOTAM and seen that there was a drone there and had flown his aircraft into the NOTAMed area of operations to have a look at the drone. That was the only case where there had been an event. The responsibility under the old rules was clearly on the remote pilot to get his aircraft out of the road and so on. They do that. The element of—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Hold there, because this goes to the heart of it. If the aircraft comes up behind the drone, the operator on the ground has no visual of an approaching aircraft, and there is no technology in that device to let them know, 'Hey, buddy: there's a big lump of tin coming up behind you at 500 kilometres an hour'—or 400 kilometres an hour.

Mr Manning : That is not the way we fly.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Guys, guys—it is not the way you fly, but—

Mr Manning : This is the way we are trained as professional pilots—

Senator O'SULLIVAN: No, we are not talking about you guys. We have had every responsible aviator in the nation come and give evidence to us. It is not about you. I am talking about the drongo out of sight who is on his seventh can of beer and second joint. That is the individual I am interested in, because they are out there, I promise you. You have seen them; you gave evidence to this effect, Mr Manning. So, Mr Thynne, I am interested to hear a response to that. I mean, one swallow—your example—does not a summer make. We have had experts here today who say that the risk profile—and I have an incredible interest in the use of this technology in agriculture, because I sit with the Nationals—I am interested to see it develop to its fullest potential, but no-one can answer that question.

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Dr Martin : I often think, don't get involved in things that are not within your sphere of control. The argument in and around recreational UAVs and sub-two-kilo thresholds and the consequence of that—there is so much uncertainty and political stuff involved with it that I leave it to you and CASA.

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Well, don't leave it to CASA!

Mr Thynne : I pose a question, Senator, about determination of what the acceptable level of risk is. How you determine to treat a risk depends on what is an acceptable level of risk, and the values you place on various things. The Kiwis, for example, actually have a dollar value on the lives of people, and they use that in determining acceptable risk for their aviation rules. What is the acceptable level of risk in Australia for aviation?

Senator O'SULLIVAN: Well, the head of CASA told us that it is like a man on a bicycle going into the traffic—evidence before the Senate estimates inquiry. So, you are 100 per cent right. But we do not share that view; we have another view, a different description of the risk profile, as do any number of peer reviewed studies from around the world, on the precautionary principle: sub-two-kilo, if it hits the nose cone of a passenger aircraft, could penetrate it, and all that comes with that. Do you want to know CASA's risk profile? They said to us that if it goes into a turbine engine, 'Don't fret; you'll only lose that engine, and the other one will still be going.' I mean, you wonder why we have a rash, why we break out in a sweat in this space. This is the sort of attitude we are confronting from our regulators. And what we are trying to get from the community—we are doing exactly what you have called for. You have to be able to answer the tough questions. You have to be able to tell us that we can allow for the proliferation of an industry....

MTF...P2