BVLOS Approvals

Unleash the full potential of your drone program with a BVLOS approval to fly Beyond Visual Line of Sight

Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), is the key to enabling maximum return on your expensive investment. BVLOS flights enable operations beyond the pilot’s visual range, allowing for insights and data collection over vast areas perfect for survey, surveillance or inspection of long linear assets.

At Hover UAV, we have significant experience obtaining BVLOS approvals for clients in sectors such as Government, Energy and Utilities, to name a few. Clients such as these are utilising their BVLOS approvals to fulfil use cases such as conducting long-range surveillance, inspections of easements and powerlines to ensure infrastructure is in good health.

What is required in obtaining a BVLOS approval?

In Australia when an organisation is seeking to fly complex missions, such as Extended Visual Line of Sight (EVLOS) or Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS), they must be approved to do so by CASA. These approvals can be broad such as a permit to fly EVLOS Class 2 anywhere in Australia, or strict such as approval to conduct BVLOS operations at certain times, for a range of dates, with a list of conditions. These approvals are called Instruments and will detail the exact conditions that the operator must abide by when flying these missions. The broader an operation is, the more intense the focus on safety and testing from CASA will be.

Starting from an existing Operators Certificate with either flight experience or EVLOS Class 2 approval:-

• Develop your concept of operations
• Develop your operational area
• Assess the airspace and population within and adjacent to your operational area, and use this information to fine-tune your operational area
• Use the specific operational risk assessment (SORA) process to determine an overall risk level for your operation based on the air and ground risk, and implemented strategic mitigations
• Use the overall risk level to determine the level of robustness required for the operational safety objectives that ensure your operation maintains the required level of safety
• Create general and site-specific BVLOS operational procedures
• Create training as required (e.g. type of flight or ERP training)
• Submit an application to the National Aviation Authority (NAA) of your country (e.g. CASA)
• Conduct assessments with the NAA as required.

Furthermore, there are licencing requirements for pilots conducting BVLOS operations. Like all operations under a ReOC, pilots must have acquired a Remote Pilots Licence (RePL). In addition to a RePL, pilots flying BVLOS operations must have completed a company training course and hold an Instrument rating (IREX) or be supervised by a pilot who holds an IREX.

Wanting to know furthermore about BVLOS approvals and how they can be achieved?

Whether conducting BVLOS flights for applications such as long-range surveillance or flying BVLOS operations from the Hover UAV Remote Operations Centre (ROC) it is undeniable that Hover UAV has much real-world experience conducting BVLOS operations.

This coupled with success in Australia and New Zealand gaining BVLOS approvals with vastly different concepts of operation positions Hover UAV strongly to assist you in achieving your desired BVLOS outcomes. Hover UAV has actively taken part in many webinars that describe what is involved in attaining a BVLOS approval. One such webinar was conducted with the Australian Association for Uncrewed Systems. It gives a practical guide to demonstrate how the Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) methodology can help get you off the ground by identifying and mitigating the risks of operating BVLOS. Alternatively at Hover UAV, we conduct training courses that help to give an understanding of the process involved in obtaining a BVLOS approval.

At Hover UAV we welcome anybody to reach out if wanting to discuss your BVLOS desires or concept of operations (Con Ops). Hover UAV will then work with you to determine the finer details such that a safety case can be developed along with a suite of procedures enabling submission to the regulator pending approval.