I’d like to start by acknowledging the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people as the traditional owners of the land on which we’re meeting and their continuing connection to land, water and community and pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
I’d also like to thank Greg and the Australian Association of Uncrewed Systems for inviting us here today – we value our relationship with the AAUS and with you.
It’s been a big year for remotely piloted aircraft and even before the impressive drone display in London as part of the coronation celebrations, it was becoming obvious who was going to rule Australian skies this year in terms of numbers.
A dramatic surge of more than 20% in the number of remote pilot licences means over the past 12 months we’re close to the point where the number RePL holders will eclipse the total number of flight crew licence holders.
We now have 30,124 RePL holders compared to 31,109 FCL holders, a difference of less than 1,000 that’s destined to be eliminated soon.
And again, this doesn’t count the almost 33,400 accredited operators — up 39% on last year — such as those flying over their own land as well as in the sub-2 kilogram and micro-RPA categories.
These impressive increases were accompanied by a 11% jump in registered drones, to 33,354 and an equally healthy 10% rise in ReOCs to almost 2600.
Much of this is due to falling barriers to entry as the cost of technology has dropped dramatically.
The public profile of commercial drones is also rising through a widening range of innovative applications.
Drones are now active in areas as diverse as medical deliveries, sport, military applications, emergency services and agriculture.
Innovative, locally developed drones continue to be unveiled. A good example was the STRIX military drone announced by BAE Systems and Perth’s Innovaero at this year’s Australian International Airshow.
Some established companies are also making headway.
Our work with Swoop Aero and the US Federal Aviation Administration on joint type and production certification of the Kite continues and Sydney’s Carbonix recently announced a US expansion after inking a deal with New Hampshire’s ArgenTech Solutions.
An area that has definitely taken off in Australia is drone displays: what was once a novelty is now a regular delight.
In the 12 months to April, our inspectors were kept busy with 26 drone light show applications for a range of events and celebrations around the country.
Among these is the world’s biggest permanent drone display, where 60,000 years of history meet the future in the skies above Uluru.
The show uses 1100 drones, light projections and traditional music to tell a traditional Anangu story sacred to local First Nations people.
The $16 million light and sound show has received great reviews so far and is expected to be a major tourist attraction.
It’s another example of how drones contribute to the economy in an industry expected to boost GDP by $14.5 billion over the next two decades, including $4.4 billion in regional areas across New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.
“Know thyself” is a concept handed down from Ancient Greece and we’ve been applying it by examining the kind of safety authority we want to be.
This included an assessment of whether our regulatory philosophy, introduced a decade ago, was fit for purpose.
That philosophy was designed to underpin the way we performed our functions, exercised our power and engaged with the aviation community.
It laid out 10 principles aimed at improving the way we worked with industry and forming a basis for mutual understanding and respect.
While a review determined the regulatory philosophy was still relevant, we’re keenly aware of the continuing need to embed it in our day-to-day activities and let it drive how we interact with industry partners such as you.
It reinforces that safety is still our prime responsibility, but our decisions should be evidence- and risk-based. We also need to make sure our decision making is transparent and based on results.
Our approach should be driven by the best information and it should not place unnecessary burdens on industry, a strategy behind the way we shape the rules covering your industry.
One example of this is our move to streamline the exam for beyond visual line of sight operations outside of controlled airspace and I’ll have more on this later.
A comment we often hear is the rules are too hard for anyone who’s not a lawyer to understand.
We’re addressing that through our guides written in plain language such as our guide to Part 101 micro and excluded RPA operations.
We’re now working on a similar guide for RePL and ReOC holders – so look out for a that towards the end of this year or early next year.
Another priority is modernising our systems and service delivery to make more of our processes automatic and reduce wait times when submitting documents.
This includes an increasing number of certificates available through our myCASA portal — a change designed to save time, make it easier to interact with us online and minimise data errors by reducing the need for tedious form-filling.
Time and tide wait for no safety authority and an increasing focus on emerging technology has seen Paul Hibberd, who will be addressing you tomorrow, appointed to head our emerging technologies and regulatory change branch.
As the name suggests, a key focus is how we handle regulatory change but we’re also looking at internal issues such as resourcing to make sure we have the skills to understand the changes heading our way.
As part of cross-government efforts to develop high-level approaches to the challenges we face, we continue to work with other federal government bodies such as Infrastructure, Airservices and Defence as well as with state governments.
We’re also collaborating with foreign authorities such as the US Federal Aviation Administration and national aviation authorities in the UK and New Zealand
And there is ongoing work with global bodies such as the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Joint Authorities for Rulemaking on Unmanned Systems.
ICAO has just created a new Advanced Air Mobility Study Group and Paul is our representative on that body. The study group is an advisory body and usually the precursor to a panel that creates standards and recommended practices, or SARPs.
It would be remiss of me not to mention the explosive growth of recreational drones and the work we’re doing in that area.
We estimate that recreational drone ownership has grown from 1.3 million in 2020 to an astounding 2.8 million this year — a great breeding ground for future commercial operators.
Our successful Know Your Drone campaign has been an effective presence on our website, at schools, in advertisements and in conjunction with local authorities to raise awareness of drone safety rules.
We’re looking at new campaign initiatives to further boost safety awareness.
We launched the RPAS and AAM strategic Roadmap at the AAUS conference last year after a world-leading collaboration between industry and CASA.
You’ll remember this involved engagement from the ground up – starting at the policy-making stage – and an intense effort across 73 professionals and industry.
The result was a plan outlining the long-term vision for the regulation of Australian RPAS and AAM and the integration of these technologies into the civil aviation system.
We’re now looking more closely at elements of the roadmap and one development has been our work on vertiports, the landing sites of the future.
We put out a draft Advisory Circular on vertiport design in November last year and there has been strong interest.
Over 4 webinars held between December and February, 792 people registered and 407 people attended.
Some 1400 people have since watched the webinars on our YouTube channel which, for those who haven’t seen it, is well worth checking out.
The webinars looked at issues such as the physical characteristics of vertiports, what sort of obstacle limitation surfaces one might involve and the visual aids that could be employed.
Since the consultation and webinars, we have set up a vertiports technical working group, or TWG, that has been discussing how the regulatory framework may look for vertiports.
How vertiports will ultimately work depends on what sort of operations we see and the characteristics of the technology they use, so there is still some way to go on this journey.
Another roadmap initiative on which we’re working is our regulatory sandbox concept.
This example of industry collaboration aims to expedite and encourage innovation by allowing participants to test and develop ideas in a ‘sandbox’ free from many regulatory constraints.
It will help us identify and assess new risks in a safe, controlled environment so we can update and develop our regulatory approach with expected benefits for your industry and the AAM sector.
A crucial issue we need to explore together is how we share airspace.
The Australian Government is committed to an uncrewed aircraft systems traffic management (UTM) for RPAS and AAM.
We’ve made no secret of the fact that introducing an integrated airspace in which legacy aircraft, hybrids, RPAS and AAM can co-exist will be major challenge.
We see remote ID and detect-and-avoid (DAA) technologies as key enablers for UTM and we’re watching developments closely.
In terms of detect-and-avoid, CASA strongly supports the Federal Government’s push to get more VFR operators to install ADS-B through its now extended rebate program. This is an initiative that will improve safety and efficiency for all Australian airspace users.
Consistent with our commitments, we’ll be conducting a complete review of the roadmap from early next year.
We know there’s strong support to allow RePL holders to conduct beyond visual line of sight operations (BVLOS) outside of controlled airspace.
There’s been a recent spike in interest — and lobbying — from the agriculture sector for expanded drone operations in areas such as mustering, land surveying and crop monitoring.
It’s been strong enough that we’ve published on our website an explainer outlining how the system works for new and existing ag sector operators.
We’re also making it easier to qualify for BVLOS OCTA operations through a new exam and I’m happy to announce this will be available within two weeks.
Designed to ease the burden on the industry, the change means remote pilots no longer need to take the instrument rating exam (IREX) geared towards conventional flight crew.
I’d just note here that that people wanting to conduct BVLOS operations within controlled airspace will still have to be an IREX-rated remote pilot.
The streamlined exam forms part of a larger body of work to future-proof the Australian remotely piloted aviation industry.
Changes we’re introducing to the CASR Part 101 manual of standards are also designed to cut red tape for industry and simplify requirements for RePL training organisations and ReOC holders.
To facilitate this change, RePL training organisations need to identify required changes to their training manual. Other ReOC holders can choose to make optional changes but should update their operational manual if they do.
These changes allow operators to do things that the previous rules didn’t allow – so there is a benefit in updating your manual.
It may not be the traditional set of steak knives but there IS also an incentive to move quickly on this: training organisations can submit the updated documentation by the 28th of this month and we’ll waive the administrative and processing fee.
Let me also address the recent attention on autonomous drones.
We don’t have any approved autonomous drone operations in Australia at present but we’re always working with your industry to review and update our processes and regulations.
We will make sure they stay relevant and safely support new technologies.
AAM was once the realm of science fiction – something Harrison Ford jumped out of in Bladerunner — but that’s no longer the case.
US company Joby Aviation is going through FAA certification for its eVTOL aircraft and earlier this year reached the second of five stages. It wants to complete the process in late 2024.
Volocopter is doing the same with the European Union Aviation Safety Agency and is hoping for a similar timeframe while Brazil’s Eve urban Mobility, which has agreements with several Australian companies, said last month it was confident of FAA certification in 2026.
There has also been movement in Australia in the past 12 months.
Earlier this year, New South Wales-based AMSL Aero successfully completed a tethered flight of its Vertiia eVTOL it hopes to sell to health services. It hopes to carry a pilot and four passengers at 300kmh with a range of 240 kilometres on battery power and up to 1000kms on hydrogen.
Alauda Aeronautics has been racing drones and is moving into hydrogen-electric propulsion with a crewed sport personal air mobility (PAM) unit being designed and built in Adelaide called the Airspeeder Mark 4.
We’ve even seen reports of three orders from Australia for Sweden’s appropriately named Jetson One PAM, which is now in production.
It’s still early days from a regulatory perspective but work is underway.
We’re looking at areas such as aircraft standards, personnel licensing and training and operations ahead of an anticipated start to local AAM flights by 2026.
Issues include whether AAM’s fit the existing rules or where there needs to be an individual CASR Part and where operations may fit in the current system.
There’s also the question of sport and recreational use and where PAM sits with self-administering organisations such as Recreational Aviation Australia (RAAus).
We’re watching overseas developments closely and the hope is there will be globally standardised approach to this emerging aircraft type.
The pace of technological change presents a challenge not just for CASA but the aviation industry when it comes to the availability of skilled workers.
New industries need a new skill set and planning is essential to define what skills we need and how we’re going to obtain them.
This covers not just the growth of drones and AAM but the introduction of new electric fixed- wing aircraft, plans to retrofit existing aeroplanes with new forms of propulsion and areas such as cybersecurity.
There is already a shortage of maintenance engineers in the legacy aviation sector. There are efforts, including from CASA, to address that, but we don’t want history to repeat.
Collaboration between the industry, government, universities and training organisations is vital to make sure emerging industries have the support they need in areas such as electrical engineering and programming.
Modern technology such as RPAS and AAM should be a strong drawcard for young people but there is clearly untapped potential among women.
Your sector is already ahead of other parts of the industry in this regard — more than 10% of RePL holders are female compared to 7% of legacy pilots and a little over 1% of licensed maintenance engineers.
But we need a strategy to make sure emerging aviation industries are attractive to both these groups and to promote working in the sector as an interesting and rewarding career.
CASA supports a range of industry programs for women. We also support various scholarships and promote aviation careers through schools, including through our Know Your Drone classroom resources education program.
CASA wants to work with you and the broader aviation community to bring forward new technology and ideas.
This is why we launched the RPAS and AAM roadmap and why we established an Emerging Technologies and Regulatory Change branch in the wake of work done last year by our Future Strategies Taskforce.
We’re keeping a close watch on developments in Australia and overseas and we’re developing a strategy to help build a future that will benefit the nation, the economy and the industry.
Meetings such as this play a key role in helping to ensure everyone is informed and on the same page.
Above all, we need to be open minded and embrace collaboration as we tackle the challenges ahead of us.
I’ve said previously that grappling with these developments won’t be easy and that’s still the case.
But if we work together, we can build a mutually beneficial future in which all of us co-exist with safe airspace for everybody.
An important part of this is industry feedback – we want you to tell us what’s important to you or if there are problems in a proposed course of action we haven’t foreseen.
We want to hear about new research and developments that may have a future impact on our regulatory activities.
We may not be able to act on every suggestion but we certainly can’t respond to something we don’t know about.
We see maintaining a strong relationship with the AAUS and industry as a key to an exciting future for Australian aviation.
Thank you.
