The European Union Aviation Safety Agency has completed its opinion on revising standard scenarios for specific-category drone flights, outlet DronEzine reported. The draft rules will be submitted to the European Commission in the coming days after the agency processed around 1,000 public consultation comments.
The regulatory package creates STS-03, a standard scenario for agricultural applications using multirotors or fixed-wing aircraft measuring up to five metres in diameter or wingspan under a future C7 class marking. Standard scenarios cover operations at specific risk levels SAIL 1 and 2, which will allow operators to fly by declaration instead of waiting for individual operational permits from national authorities.
National regulators face long processing backlogs, with authorisations taking five to six months in Italy and up to 20 months in Germany. European Commission adoption is planned for the second half of next year, followed by a one-year transition period before operators can declare the new scenarios in late 2028.
The framework also restructures remote pilot licensing into a single tiered certificate with theory, visual-line-of-sight and beyond-visual-line-of-sight ratings. Livio Generali of Italian authority ENAC explained that drone makers will take on more responsibility for calculating risk mitigations in flight manuals, while pilots will face an expanded 60-question examination.
