THE SYSTEM OF REGISTRATION OF DRONE USERS AND EXAMINATION OF REMOTE PILOTS WAS LAUNCHED

in 2020 December 31 European Commission Regulation (EU) No. 2019/947, which unified the rules for flying drones across Europe.

One of the main rules that both new and experienced drone pilots need to know is that from now on, all flights are divided into three categories – open (it is further subdivided into subcategories – A1, A2 and A3), special and certified.

A few simple rules apply to flights in the open category:

• the maximum flight height cannot exceed 120 meters,
• it is mandatory to keep a safe distance from people and buildings,
• it is prohibited to fly over gatherings of people,
• the remote pilot must have visual sight of his aircraft throughout the flight.

The ban on flying in the air traffic zones of airports and airfields, over strategically important objects, in the border zone or in other restricted and prohibited zones also remains.

The main innovation is that drone owners who have a drone weighing more than 250 grams or any weight with a camera need to register in a special system >> . It generates a unique personal registration number to mark your drone.

“It is important that the system does not register a specific device, but the person who owns it, so if a person has several drones, he must display the same registration number on all of them,” emphasizes Adolfas Kuzborski, head of the TKA Flight Supervision Department group.

Also, from now on, drones heavier than 250 grams will only be able to be flown with a remote pilot’s certificate – for this, it will be necessary to complete a theoretical knowledge course and pass an online exam in the same TKA system .

Flights that do not comply with the requirements of the open category – for example, take off higher than 120 m from the ground or the remote pilot can no longer see his aircraft – fall into the special category. Before each flight, it is mandatory to submit an application for permission to fly and a flight risk assessment to TKA. Remote pilots in this category will also need to pass an additional theory test in the TKA exam class.

In the certified category, flights are operated in extremely challenging conditions or by certified aircraft subject to the same airworthiness regulations as all civil aircraft.

From 2023 all drones sold in the European Union will be divided into classes, so when purchasing such a device, you will need to pay attention to its class and CE marking, as this may determine the choice of flying category and additional requirements for conducting flights.

Regulation (EU) No. 2019/947 has a two-year transition period, so the Lithuanian Transport Safety Administration (LTSA) has approved a National Standard Scenario >> , which will help drone users smoothly transition to the Regulation’s requirements.

In order to take advantage of the conditions of the National Standard Scenario, the remote pilot, first of all, needs to independently complete an online theoretical knowledge training course in the online TKA system and additionally pass a theory exam in the TKA exam class. Then it is necessary to submit a declaration to TKA that the flights performed meet all the conditions of the National Standard Scenario. After the institution accepts the declaration, the remote pilot will be able to carry out flights without a separate TKA permit for each of them.

All licenses previously issued to the remote pilot by the LTSA are also valid during the transition period.

IMPORTANT! 
During the transitional period, i.e. until the drones are not marked by classes (until January 1, 2023), the A1 subcategory of the open flight category is used to fly drones weighing up to 500 g, and A2 – up to 2 kg.
During the transition period, subcategory A2 has an additional requirement to keep 50 meters away from outsiders.
There are no changes in sub-category A3 during the transitional period.

More on the new drone regulation:

• 15min.lt in the show “Kylam” ;
• In the ” Unmanned aerial vehicles ” section of the TKA website .

If you have additional questions, please contact us by e-mail. by e-mail [email protected] – currently, due to the high volume of requests, it may take some time to get a response.

Our specialists can also be contacted by phone, we advise on weekdays from 13:00 to 16:00:
– for registration of drone users, call 8 5 2 73 90 12;
– in matters of remote pilot exams – 8 5 2 05 25 24.