At the RPAS 2014 conference in Brussels, Belgium on June 24th, Filippo Tomasello of EASA will discuss EASA’s view of the European Commission’s European RPAS Roadmap Initiative.
More than 10 years ago Australia and UK published the first rules in the world for civil RPAS operations. Both rules exempted small RPAS for airworthiness certification and formal pilot license, being instead ‘operations centric’ and so legally identifying the civil RPAS operator with its responsibilities and privileges. Today several EU member States and few others around the world have promulgated regulations focusing on civil operations of RPAS. The details of such rules are different and unfortunately not harmonised, which is detrimental to the free movement of goods, persons and services in the internal EU market and in the global one.
However there is already a common denominator across these ‘operations centric’ regulations: (a) the responsibilities of the operator which include submitting a safety assessment, but also security management, insurance, as well as privacy and data protection; (b) the focus on VLOS operations below 500 ft AGL, which is currently the civil market segment experiencing an exponential growth; (c) the ‘proportionality’ principle which means ‘light touch’ rules for light RPAS (e.g. less than 25 kg), outside of populated areas; (d) some States, to alleviate the burden on the authority, delegate some tasks to qualified entities.
The number of legally authorised civil RPAS operators, the majority of which is in Europe and Japan, is approaching 4,000 and still growing. The European Commission has announced the intention to extend the mandate of EASA to civil RPAS below 150 kg, which will lead to ‘common rules’, beneficial for uniform safety and for the internal market. EASA will however maintain the principle of ‘proportionality’ and add the principle of ‘proximity’ (i.e. certificates and approvals, where required, issued mainly at national level).
Filippo Tomasello was cadet in the Academy of the Italian Air Force (IAF) in 1969 and graduated with honours in aeronautical engineering in 1974. Now Lieutenant Colonel of the reserve. He was flight test engineer in IAF until 1984, involved in the multi-national Tornado programme. During this period he had flight experiences, including on military prototypes. Subsequently in ENAV, the major Italian Air Navigation Service Provider (ANSP), was manager for R&D and for modernisation projects for Air Traffic Management (ATM), including new radar sites and modernisation of automation in Area Control Centres.
Since 1991 he is professor at University ‘Parthenope’ in Naples. Member of the ICAO Special Committee on Future Air Navigation Systems (FANS) since 1987, he was rapporteur for development of the standards for data link (VDL Mode 2). Then he chaired the ADS Panel and the Mobile Communications Panel for about 5 years. He joined EUROCONTROL in 2000 as manager for Northern Europe, to harmonise the medium term ATM enhancement plans in the involved States.
In 2005 he joined the European Commission, working on accident investigation, data collection and extension of the competences of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) to ATM, ANS and aerodromes. Since 2007 he is rulemaking official in EASA responsible for a number of projects, spanning from airworthiness, to flight operations, preparation of the ICAO 37th Assembly in 2010, phasing out of halon for environmental reasons, communication services via satellite, electronic flight bag, etc. He was focal point in EASA for RPAS, so designated in different ICAO groups, including the Study Group on UAS, where he was elected co-chair in 2012.
In JARUS he is rapporteur, since 2013 of WG2 developing requirements for organisations (JARUS-ORG), including RPAS manufacturers, operators and schools for remote pilots. His full time service in EASA terminates on 31 January 2015.
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