EASA’s “Open” Category for Military UAS: Opportunities and Limitations in the Field of Airworthiness

The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) plans to establish a sole risk-based set of regulations for drones to grant access to European airspace, thus opening a multibillion-euro market. One part of this new regulation set is the so-called “open” category, imposing only a minimum set of regulations. The EASA’s approach presents a strong converse to traditional and prescriptive airworthiness regulations. For decades, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have been state-of-the-art assets in military forces. Aiming at the fulfilment of complex missions in extreme environments, in different theatres of operation, and with different partners, military UAS need to be reliable, safe, and interoperable. Therefore, NATO established internationally accepted airworthiness standards. However, these standards might be too severe to be adhered to by small, commercial, off-the-shelf UAS in the up-to-25 kg category, preventing the military from benefiting from the now fast-growing civil drone market. Based on a sound literature review, the paper presents the EASA’s upcoming regulations for civil UAS and discusses if they are applicable to military UAS. Possible opportunities, challenges, and limitations of applying the approach for the military are shown.