#97 Julie Garland, Avtrain: Drone business and regulation in Europe

In this episode we’re joined by Julie Garland, CEO of Avtrain, for a deep dive into the current state of the drone industry and regulation across Europe. Julie shares her perspective on why societal acceptance is just as critical as regulatory approval. We explore how operators like Manna are working to normalize drone activity and influence regulations, and why simplifying regulatory frameworks, including the SORA process, is essential to enable broader adoption of drone operations.

The conversation also sheds light on the limited number of authorized SAIL III operations across EASA member states and the challenges operators face in meeting technical validation requirements, often by building their own aircraft. Julie walks us through promising commercial use cases, from consumer delivery to infrastructure inspection to airport operations, and outlines how digitization and standardization could unlock more scalable, efficient drone deployments. 

Chapters

• 6:07 Community acceptance of drones
• 15:10 Drone noise complaints
• 18:18 Trajectory of drone use and regulations in Europe
• 27:58 SORA 2.5 and simplifying low-risk operations
• 36:58 Defining SAIL levels
• 43:40 Solving for Detect and Avoid
• 50:10 The ultimate streamlined rollout
• 55:47 Update on use cases
• 1:01:14 Digitization of SORA
• 1:05:42 Who's making money in the drone industry today?

Transcript

Julie: 0:00

There's only something like 35 authorized operations across all the EASA member states that are sitting in SAIL III at this moment in time. I can't give you this statistic, but I would certainly put money on it that out of those 35 operators who were sitting at SAIL III, I would say the vast majority of them are OEM-operators. They're building their own aircraft, they're not using off the shelf. And the reason for that is because in order to be able to make the technical validations that you need to at a SAIL III operation, you have to be building it yourself. And you have to have that design iteration process in house.

Luka: 1:35

Hey, welcome back everyone. In today's episode, we're diving into the drone business and regulations in Europe, and we're joined by one of the most respected voices in the field, Julie Garland. We talked to Julie about the evolution of drone regulations across Europe, how the rules are changing and what it takes to build a successful drone business in today's landscape. Julie is the founder and CEO of Avtrain, one of Europe's leading drone training and consultancy organizations. She brings a uniquely broad background to the industry. She's a former airline training captain, aircraft maintenance engineer and barrister at law. She's also a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society, president of the Joint European Drone Association and Vice Chair of the JARUS Industry Stakeholders Body Steering Committee. Avtrain's mission is simple and powerful to enable prolific drone operations while keeping the skies safe with rigorous standards in training, certification and regulatory compliance. Their motto, if it's dull, dirty or dangerous, a drone should be doing it. Alright, let's get into it. Julie, welcome to The Vertical Space.

Julie: 3:21

Thank you so much for having me on. It's an absolute pleasure to be here. I'm an avid listener

Luka: 3:25

Thank you very much. So you'll know that we start by asking if there's anything that very few in the industry agree with you on.

Julie: 3:31

So I think overall, because I've got such a broad view of the industry and I've been like, I am 10 years in the drone industry now and more recently towards advanced air mobility, I'm kind of a bit of a dinosaur in it. So we've seen it from the outset when it was, very much consumer led going into enterprise and, predicting what was coming. So I don't know that there's that much that people would disagree with. I would say that my, biggest, concern with regards to the industry is probably the societal acceptance as we go forward. and I think other people are really coming on board with that now and realize that we've always said we want to turn the dial towards societal desirability rather than acceptance. And, I think we've a lot of work within society to actually do that. Now I think people who are within the drone industry accept that. And I think one of the things that we do as people in the drone industry and the advanced air mobility industry is we live in our little bubble. And we think everybody knows all about drones and all about advanced air mobilities and all about what eVTOLs are.'Cause we talk about them and we talk all these acronyms all day long. But actually the general public know very little about it. So, I think within the drone industry, people would agree with me on that, that we need to do more on societal acceptance. But I think when we go to wider society and we start talking to people about drones and drone use cases, they tend to think of war and they tend to think of, that's the only application that they see them in rather than the day-to-day drones for good. So not sure if it's really what people would disagree. I think there's a discrepancy between what we, within the industry believe and what people from outside of the industry, what our understanding of what their level of knowledge is. So I think we, we've a big piece of work to do to bring people on board, to bring them along the journey with us and to make sure that we go to that, societal desirability rather than just acceptance. So not sure if everybody disagrees with it, but I think society generally has a different opinion of the industry than those internal in the drone industry have.

Luka: 5:18

Can you give us another example of where this, disagreement happens?

Julie: 5:23

I think that, we, well, we speak in acronyms all the time and we speak it completely different language. And I think then when we start talking to other people who are not necessarily on a day-to-day basis involved in this industry, we lose them at the first sentence. And we can be really bad at explaining things sometimes in simple language, simple plain language. So I think simple, plain language. highlighting the benefit of drones in society and that they're not just a, something that should be used in war or something, that there's a real, we do a lot of work, say with the Irish Coast Guard, and the opportunity for drones within search and rescue, the opportunity for, first aid for defibrillators, and we should be promoting this. I think we, we don't promote our industry. We react. We're not proactive. We're reactive within the industry, and I think we need to be much, much more. And the problem is, we're fledgling industry, so, so we don't have time to be proactive. We always end up reacting rather than being proactive. So I really think we need to be a lot more proactive on bringing society along with us on the journey so that they don't just suddenly have, drones in their neighborhood or whatever it might be. We, that stakeholder engagement, that societal engagement is vitally important. and understanding, understanding the technology, people are not used to having things in the air flying close to them. we have airplanes, but been around for a long time, but they fly quite a distance away from people on the ground. So they're not necessarily used to having things these, this close to them, or noise or, and they don't necessarily understand it. And there's an assumption I think, by a lot of people that because they're in the air, they're heavily regulated. but it could be a hobby drone pilot, who has done very minimal amount of training with an off-the-shelf drone. So I just think that whole acceptance education of the general public and moving that, and not just having an expectation that they will love drones. We need to make them love drones and bring them along that journey

Jim: 7:02

Julie, interesting, comment. So I love the idea that you're a dinosaur in a 10-year-old, industry. That's cool.

Julie: 7:09

Yeah.

Jim: 7:09

So that's an interesting comment. And guys, we haven't heard a lot in the last year or so people mention acceptance by the community. And I'm completely on board with you. So you're in Ireland, and I've listened to a couple of, webinars that you've done or recordings that you've done online we've never met before. But, you've mentioned, about Bobby Healy's work in Ireland. Two questions. One, has what Bobby's done in Ireland, has it helped the acceptance of drones in Ireland? And then the second question, do you have the same belief about community acceptance that you did three or four years ago?

Julie: 7:49

So, so both really good questions, Bobby. Yep. I am a, I'm a big fan and, Bobby I think has done more single-handedly, not just in Ireland, but across Europe, for pushing the drone industry forward. And it's what it is, it's about normalizing drones into day-to-day life and that. If we're going to end up with societal desirability, we have to do that. We have to normalize that these, this is a normal thing that goes on outside your door, your next door neighbor having their coffee delivered by a drone. that, that's the normalization. And I think Bobby has gone, there's 2 areas where I would say Bobby has really excelled in this. One is a normalization, and the other one is in the regulatory realm of pushing things forward. They hold an LUC, which is this light unmanned aircraft systems operator certification, which means they have a full on safety management system, compliance system. It's more than most small airlines would have, their compliance is incredible. and seeing the regulation being pushed to its fullest extent, they have a SAIL three operations. So they're right there in the midst of the specific category authorizations with the SAIL three LUC, so for beyond line of sight. So they have really pushed, but they have done the crawl, walk, run, and it's only now they're even getting to, I would say they're not even sprinting yet. they're on a marathon journey. So I think that's one area.

Jim: 8:55

Answer this when you want, has the community, is it more accepting or less accepting than three years ago, let's say, before Bobby started, what's, how has been the community response, fit this into your response? I'm sorry to interrupt.

Julie: 9:08

Yeah. No, not at all. So, the community, I suppose the way the community has responded is that three years ago, it wasn't normal for a drone to be flying over your house, whereas if you live in certain areas in Dublin now it is normal. so I think that normalization, so has the community responded? There has certainly, and there's been quite a lot in the press recently, and, there's been a little bit around the noise aspect of propellers. Manna have gone down a huge, they're involved with, Trinity College here in Dublin on an acoustics and noise profile to reduce the noise profile. They've applied for higher level where they operate as well, so that noise doesn't affect people when they're in an overflight stage. It would only affect them during a very short delivery phase, which about 15 seconds long. So there's technology is helping with the societal acceptance. So as you increase the, we have this thing at Avtrain that our mission is to encourage prolific drone operations, but keep the safe through the highest standards, training, certification and regulatory compliance. And that's our mission. So we've always had this about prolific drone operations, but we can't have that unless within society, that we accept that not everybody is necessarily going to want this flying over their house. And we are gonna have complaints. We have people who live beside airports for 20 years and still complain about the noise of airplanes, but they moved in beside an airport. Now the reality with drones is you know, you're not necessarily gonna know there's gonna be a drone port set up beside you. There's whole planning permission, there's regulatory issues around do you have access? Do you have rights over the airspace above your house, above your private property, above your garden? So there's a whole load of regulatory pieces that we need to sort out at government and at state levels individually in order to allow people to have their privacy in order for them to not have to succumb to noise or visual, pollution. But at the same time that we allow for industry to develop and the rights of others to be accepted as well. So there's a balance. And I think it's really important that we listen to what people are saying, that we take it on board and that we balance it out. noise is definitely no matter what with the drones that we have right now, it's still an issue. But I know that Manna have just done a really extensive regulatory application for new propellers, which are much better from an acoustic point of view. It's with slightly, winged tips on them. so, and also for the higher air space. So it's about taking on board what people are saying and what society wants, and then applying that and using technology to improve it. So I think there is, as you get, society does start to push back when we start having more prolific operations for sure. and, but that's what we need to have, we need to have that balance. We need to have the additional drone operations before we actually really find out what society, what is their acceptance levels.

Peter: 11:35

So I found it really remarkable. Luka and I were in Dublin in June, visiting with Manna. And so, we received drone deliveries for the first time. And so, we were out in Blanchard's town, made the order, the drone comes over and it does its whole thing and we get our delivery and there are other people around in the neighborhood walking down the sidewalk and they didn't even look up. They didn't pay any attention whatsoever to this aircraft hovering overhead, delivering us coffee. And then we were down, and we, at the main base in Blanchardstown, there were five drones operating in and out around the clock and the people there around that shopping center didn't look up at all.

Julie: 12:16

And this, yeah. Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And this is the whole thing about what I, when I use the word normalization, this is what Bobby has done. He's normalized a drone flying over your head and delivering a coffee into your next door neighbor's garden. Or your garden or your kids jumping up and down with excitement.'cause they're having a party and they get their lollipops delivered by, and their ice pops delivered. So it's a huge thing that we, and this is the point I'm making, is that unless we have it, we don't know how society's gonna respond to it. We have now, we now have it, and we can see how society is responding. There's been, about they've done 200,000 flights, something like that. It's a, it's a huge number of flights with a tiny proportion of those resulting in, any issues around noise or anything else. And then, as I say, they're using technology in order to improve that. so yes, you're always gonna have a naysayer to something that's going on, and you're always gonna have people who believe that technology shouldn't necessarily have part of our lives. And you're gonna have other people who embrace it, and you're gonna have people who are just ambivalent to it and see it going on in the background and are, and just accept that it's there. So, but I do think we had, we actually had JARUS SRM, the Safety Risk Management, over in Dublin. And, so we had, whatever, we, about 35, 40 regulators from all over the world here at the, based at the Irish Aviation Authority for five days and brought them out to Manna and it was lashing rain. It was like a typical Irish day, wind and sideways rain. And the Manna drones were operating away and you couldn't have asked for a better day. Like all the regulators were there huddled under their umbrellas, trying to keep hold of them while the drones are just operating away. No problem at all. So that's what it's about. It's about seeing proper live operations, not just nice storyboards and, people talking about what they're going to do in the future. It's actually being able to visually see it. And I agree with you. You walk out, you go to Blanchardstown, Glasnevin and any of the bases, if they're in, over in Helsinki now as well, and people, it just normalizes it, it becomes normal. It's everyday life.

Peter: 14:00

Yeah, for me is that all, all of us have these rather academic sort of conversations. A lot of us, who listen to this podcast and who are in the drone industry about noise and about will drones be accepted in these communities. And, but if you just actually go to a place like Dublin and you watch it, and you watch the people. That's the most important data point because people walk around and they don't pay any attention whatsoever to the drones. It's completely normalized. and, so I went there with this whole academic conversation in my head, it's like, well, what is it gonna be? I really want to hear what this noise is like when it's operating in this type of profile, et cetera, et cetera, and get there and you listen to it and it's not that noisy. And the people have completely conditioned themselves to it. I mean, yes, you're gonna have some people that are gonna file complaints. That's always gonna happen. That would happen even with cars. But to see the way that people react, it just put this question to rest in my mind.

Julie: 14:55

Yeah.

Jim: 14:55

Did you order a coffee, Peter?

Peter: 14:57

Yeah. I got a coffee and a donut and, another donut.

Julie: 15:00

Yeah,

Jim: 15:01

I think, didn't, didn't Bobby mention something about a really nice pastry shop that he works with?

Peter: 15:06

Well, he was pushing those pretty hard

Jim: 15:08

How hot was the coffee?

Julie: 15:09

so he, I'm surprised you didn't get the onion story. the onion story is the normal one where they, he used to have any, when he was doing investor pictures or anything, if you saw photographs of it, there was just like a photograph of one onion. And this was the epitome of, of, small basket items. You're at home, you're making your dinner, and you realize you don't have an onion and you just go on your app, dial in one onion, please, and the next thing, there it is in your back garden, now, but another thing to consider around that. Let's say you didn't have that onion. What are you gonna do? You're gonna get in your car. You're gonna drive to the supermarket, you're gonna go in, you're gonna run around, you're gonna get your onion, you're gonna drive, get back in your car and drive home. So just think of it even from an emissions point of view and look at all of that. The time emissions, the whole ESG part of it, is really incredible. And what it's, because these are people who would drive to get their coffee. they're gonna drive up to the coffee shop, get their coffee, get back in their car, drive home again.

Jim: 15:59

I, because you brought up the subject, I want to continue on with the, concept of noise. And we all know noise near big airports. It doesn't take many people. I mean, one or two people complaining to a Congress person in the United States gets massive funding changed at the FAA level, at the government level. what's your sense of those one or two people complaining? Is it gonna be more apt to be similar numbers? Of people near airports who complain. And of course it's certain airports, right? is it gonna be comparable? But even those one or two, I mean, you mentioned that, that, Peter, when you look up, nobody's looking up, but three or four people looking up who complain in the United States to their congressperson can have massive changes. Do you think it's gonna be better or worse than what we're experiencing at the airports today?

Julie: 16:52

With regards to noise and noise complaints at airports versus drone ports. The noise profile is totally different and it is going to be reducing over time as technology improves. So, so that's one aspect of it is that we're on a sliding scale of downward, rather than upward, whereas large aircraft at an airport environment, the other side, I'd say, and in an airport environment, you're gonna be living in an airport environment, whereas with the drone delivery company, you don't necessarily know whether it's gonna start up beside you. There's gonna be planning, there's gonna be all those issues. They're not resolved yet. But what I would say, and this is where, I think it's quite funny and the same I applies for drones, and the same would apply for drone ports. And that is like, if you take, say Dublin airport, there was just over 70,000, noise complaints over the period of time in, in 2024. one individual put in more than seven and a half thousand of those seven, so you know more than 10% of all of the complaints, which meant that. when you work that out, it was like 40 times a day they were complaining about the noise at the airport, but they live close to the airport. So you're always gonna have certain individuals who are going to be very, agitated by things and they are going to be the loud voice that you're gonna hear. And this is the person who goes to your congress first, or goes to whoever. They're the loud voice, but they're not representative of a majority in most cases. And I think we, that needs, that should be taken into account when we look at this, is that where we look at what is the proportion of flights that are taking places versus the amount of complaints that are taking place. And then we go about doing that. We're actually involved in two projects at the moment on a European level as Avtrain one of them is, is called Air Mob. It's an Erasmus project, so it's a university led. And it's very much looking at establishing these coves, they're called Center of Vocational Excellence for Advanced their Mobility. So we're looking at skills gap analysis, but a big part of that is surveys around what is a societal acceptance and actually trying to measure it right now. And then looking at towards, as we go through the project, what is societal? is there aspects that we can identify within that? and I think that's gonna be very interesting over time as well. We're also involved in an eVTOL air project, which is around a deep, a digital sky demonstrator. And that's about, the digitization of the airspace so that we can have these prolific drone operations. And now we're looking at when we've, we're just coming to the end of that project and one of the big outcomes of that is going to be. What else do we need to put in place in order to allow for this to happen? And, the societal acceptance, desirability is one part of it. But then their whole, all the other pieces of the jigsaw, the airspace, access to airspace, rights to airspace selling airspace, selling access to airspace, U-Space service providers, government information service, all of these other things, who has the right to, to airspace. And I think this is where, it's interesting when you have beyond visual line of site flights like Manna are delivering in, in a particular area. You have BVLOS flights, you've access to that airspace. Who owns the airspace? Who has access to it? Can you give preference to one commercial operator over another? And you can't. And we have to apply those basic principles from an aviation point of view, of not giving rights to airspace, to commercial operators versus somebody else who may want to access that airspace and making sure that we take a balanced, proportional approach to it. So I think there's a whole other raft of issues there. from a, a commercialization aspect in the commercialization of our airspace and how we go by doing that into the future as well.

Luka: 20:00

Julie, it's been what, maybe four and a half years since, the, regulations at EASA level, at least as it pertains to the specific category of drones has been harmonized across the member states. Looking back over those four and a half, five years, how would you characterize the trajectory of the drone use and regulation in Europe? Are we where we thought would be in terms of scale and maturity?

Julie: 20:23

Yeah. we're, I think we're so far behind where we thought we'd be. but I think there's a number of factors, that feed into that from a regulatory point of view. We have, I, I think I, a and, national aviation authorities have recognized that there has been an over egging of the application of the regulation from a regulatory standpoint. We have stifled and strangled the industry. in the last, in the last five years, one of the, I, so I see it as the sab, the stakeholders advisory body, at the plenary representing the drone industry. And there's all of the different sectors from aviation sit around that table. And there's a huge project going on about the simplification of the regulations because we find ourselves in a quagmire now that's all of the regulatory environment. So every aspect of it, whether it's airports, airlines, maintenance, all of them, they're looking at, we've just ended up adding more and more layers of regulation in rather than going back to basics and actually stripping out what do we need, what don't we need? So there's a huge project with EASA around simplification, but the drone sector has really latched onto this, and they've already started running workshops. So I sat at EASA for three days last week at a simplification workshop where we're looking at the industry participation in what are the areas, the low risk, so open category and SAIL one, and SAIL two operations in the specific categor. Can we have predefined risk assessments? Can we look towards introducing more standard scenarios? How do we take the National Aviation Authority oversight of those really low risk operations and allow operators to be based around a much more declaratory approach? We have proven that we're safe. we've proven over the last five years, we haven't had anything like the number of flyaways, the number of, of incidents, accidents, occurrences, anything else, they're not there. They haven't happened. So therefore, it's obvious within the regulation where we looked at the rate of failures that would be allowable within the regulation based on the SAIL levels. They have never occurred. So we've been overregulated for that period of time. I think it's a credit to the likes of Manna and other operators who have managed to come through that overregulation and come out the other side, have SAIL three operations. Those have gone through design verification reports. but I think the whole move now is for simplification of the regulations. We don't need to have the regulator involved at every single step of the way. We can be trusted as operators to have some more oversight from an industry perspective of ourselves. we've proven that we're trustworthy. We've proven that we are safe. and we've proven that the regulations as we have it now are over complex for the types of operations that, that have been visited. So it has stifled the industry over the last five years.

Luka: 22:57

When you translate, this to some specific examples, I'm curious to learn more, your thoughts on really what the root causes are of this, over egging as you call it, because there have been pre-defined risk assessments before. There have been standard scenarios, and yet we're still talking about this phenomenon. So what really, if you peel that onion, you know what's at the core?

Julie: 23:21

Yeah, so the implementation dates of the regulation, I think that it just screwed us from the start, like, because what we ended up with was we ended up with a lack of harmonization across member states. We had member states when the EASA regulations were published, member states were allowed to put in national standard scenarios, and they often closely mirrored, but weren't the actual standard scenarios that EASA had published. So the pilots who underwent those didn't do STS training, they did a national certificate and that's all they have. And at the end of this year, all of that disappears and they have to conform with EASA standards because of the implementation dates as they run the end of this year. Now they all have to conform something like 60,000 pilots in France who hold national standard scenario certificates. How on earth are they all gonna be processed between now and the end of December to actually transform those into EASA certificates? so I think that is one area where nobody envisaged what a log jam we actually created for ourselves where operators now suddenly have to go through. So operators have been trying to normalize themselves into the EASA realms. So they've started using SORA risk assessments. On that basis, PDRAs predefined risk assessments were never taken up the way they should have been because of these national standard scenarios. Operators who weren't planning on operating anywhere else other than within their own jurisdiction didn't bother going down a national, an SDS route or A-P-D-R-A route. They just went down the national standard scenario route.

Luka: 24:50

but how does that explain the lack of adoption at the national level?

Julie: 24:53

Yeah, because the PDRA, they went for a national standard scenario rather than A-P-D-R-A. And if they had have had A-P-D-R-A, they would, now they wouldn't have this. They had to have an operations manual for A-P-D-R-A, whereas under a national standard scenario, it was often a declaratory approach. Whereas for an actual ASA PDRA application, they had to actually submit their operations manual to the regulator and the regulator then had to review it and

Luka: 25:14

But within, but within the four walls of a national aviation authority, that could have been mitigated with the adoption of, national rules. Right. So there, there's gotta be something else there as well. Right? Because otherwise we'd have flourishing drone ecosystems in each individual member state.

Julie: 25:30

Yeah. Resources.

Luka: 25:31

necessarily harmonized across the eu, but there would still be their pockets of these operations, right.

Julie: 25:36

Yeah. resources within the naas. So what ended up, so we didn't have the resources within the Naas to even deal with these. We had no digitized systems. We had no resources within Naas, and we had a lack of expertise as well, and a lack of risk appetite towards the, even on the national standard scenario basis. So we had regulators who were, Not willing to, not necessarily not willing to accept a declaratory approach, but who wanted to have, who wanted to dig into the weeds of every operation, but didn't have the time, the energy or the expertise internally within the Naas. And also, there's a huge cost involved in this. when you look at a National Aviation Authority applying the resources, we have over 2 million, registered operators in EASA now, and every one of those has had to go through a process of registration, whether that, a lot of cases, now that's digital, but it wasn't when we started off. So a lot of these processes were all being done manually. So people were, national aviation authorities were caught up processing manual applications for an operator registration. That should have been just straight off from the outset, digital. So I think the resources within naas weren't properly deployed. The, there was a lack of expertise within NAAS as well, and a lack of a risk appetite. So therefore there was an over. Indulgence in what does an operations manual have to say for simple operation in SAIL one and SAIL two? we've ended up, we've developed in, in, after we've developed a template operations manual before EASA published their template operations manual. And even now with that template, operations manual that's there with the backwards and forwards and multiple regulators, that operations manual is now runs to in excess of a hundred pages. This is for a SAIL one or a SAIL two operation. Like, that's like any drone operator, this is a simple operation that they're carrying out. and that's under a predefined risk assessment in a control ground area where they have a flight termination system. So they have enhanced containment and they have over a hundred pages written down about how they're gonna go about flying this drone that's below 25 kilograms, often below 10 kilograms, and they have a hundred pages of text. It's way too much. And, that should be a five page document that says, when I go out, this is what I'm gonna do. Here's my checklist and that's it. So, we ran away with ourselves about these are in the sky, so therefore they should be treated in the same way. And we should divide our operations manual up into parts A, B, C, D, and we should have root plans and we should have all of these different things. And these were for really basic, simple operations. So we got caught up at the low end of the risk and we gave way too much oversight within that low level of risk. So therefore when people wanted to move from that low to medium level of risk, there wasn't enough up and coming low level risk operations to move into that mid range of risk. So I think that we've, we're coming out the other side of that now in that there is more acceptance from a debt clarity point of view. There's more being put back into the industry. There's more trust within the industry. And Naas have booked their game entirely. They're now. we have some really excellent people within the national aviation authorities that are both sitting at EASA level, that con contributing towards the tabs, the, as the asset task forces, but also into JARUS as well. So into the future development of the regulation and seeing where have we gone wrong And this whole simplification task force, it's identified now that we have gone way overboard with the regulatory environment and the oversight. And we can back off a lot and simplify what we're doing. So a combination, I totally agree. It's not just one thing, it's not just, that we put in national standard scenarios. It's a combination of all of it. The length of time authorizations took, the fact that an operations manual had to be reviewed prior to an authorization being granted. The fact that we didn't have simple declaratory approaches for simple operations and the open category class identification marking as well, really delayed. Like we, we had a regulation that required class identification marking, but we didn't have class identified drones until what, this end of 23 and start at 24. So the regulation had been in force firm. Two and a half, nearly three years before we had our first class identification, before anybody was actually made to make it able to make a declaration. So I think all of that, and I think now technology has actually leapfrog the regulation again, and that's why we're now gonna end up with the notice of proposed amendment towards the end of this year. And hopefully that's gonna introduce additional availability within the open category so people won't be pushed into that specific category, operational authorization, procedures, processes,

Luka: 29:37

Talk more about this, Julie. what happens end of this year?

Julie: 29:40

So the end of this year, we're gonna have a notice of proposal. So first of all, we're gonna have SORA 2.5 in September of this year, published by EASA that's already implemented on the 23rd of April that was implemented in the uk, which is great to see the UK and the rest of, and, coming back in line with what we're doing in EASA.. So the September is now the estimate for EASA SORA 2.5. And and then towards the end of this year, then there'll be a no proposed amendment published. And we've been doing a lot of work as jeda, as a joint European Drone Associations. around that. We're part of the TAB task force and we are also sit at the SAB level. So we're also there integrated and we've set up this D-C-S-D-G, this drone steering committee. And, we've direct input now into all of the TAB task forces that are looking at all of the different aspects. Related to how should we change the regulation? So we're directly involved as industry and what, in giving a direct input back to the regulator on where we have found all of the issues. That's really positive that NPA will be published in, towards the end of this, the very end of this year. that notice of proposed amendment then is, will be published as an opinion, will be able to have feedback on a more general basis, not just the smaller the industry associations, but the wider entire community will be able to, give their feedback on that. And that will see a simplification from a regulatory point of view in the open category and in the certainly SAIL one and SAIL two in the specific category. And it's only then when we get into SAIL three and SAIL four that will need that really significant oversight from an aviation regulator point of view where there's scrutiny of what you've written in your operations manual, what your processes and procedures are. So it's all about the simplification and putting more back into the industry. And, the trust that is deserved within the industry from a regulatory oversight point of view, the specifics are under discussion at the moment, and, but the simplification is really, the thought processes are around having more declaratory approach, having, the open category and being allowed within the open category to, possibly a new, so we have A1, A3 and we have a two and possibly, either expanding out on the A three or having an A four category, which would allow us to carry out more operations in the open category without having to have either an operational authorization or make a declaration in the specific category. So, simplification all around.

Luka: 31:48

Julie, how does the aviation community look at the drone community as a stakeholder in aviation more broadly?

Julie: 31:57

One of the areas that we've really seen this, within EASA the community being accepted last December, there was a vote from the MAB, which is the, advisory button. the members. Within EASA to accept the drone community as a stakeholder. and that's huge because the sec, it had never been deemed to be a sector in its own right. we had a second SAB plenary there just a couple of weeks ago over in Cologne and with EASA and one of the things that was striking was when you talk to the other sectors, so you're talking about sitting around the table, you've got airlines, airline representative associations, you've got airports, you've got airspace service providers, you've got, cabin crew, you've got maintenance, you've got training organizations, you've got general aviation, you've got rotorcraft community. You have all of these stakeholders sitting around the table. And what's different between every one of those is that within the drones community, we have every one of those sectors. And this was actually striking when we sat around the table. And for the other sectors, because we have, within the drones community, we have OEMs, we've got designers, we've got, manufacturers, we've got operators, we've got pilots, we've got U-Space service providers, we've got, verti port, we've got infrastructure providers. We have advanced air mobility. We have all, every single sector is covered within this one community, but yet we have never been accepted in the wider community. So I think that was one of the really striking things that I saw from the stakeholders advisory body, where,

Jim: 33:23

and Julie, what meaningful difference does that mean to your community

Julie: 33:27

well, I think it's.

Jim: 33:27

being accepted?

Julie: 33:28

Yeah, I think it's acceptance at the other levels that we are, that we, number one, that we're stakeholders within the aviation community. That we're not just the drone community. Who are those annoying people over there who are trying to interfere with what we want to do every day? So I think it's that really moving on from an acceptance point of view, that it's not just about the public acceptance, it's also within our own community and within the own aviation community that we are a stakeholder. We need access to airspace the same way as everybody else does. We need infrastructure, we need support, we need funding. We need all of these different realms that the other traditional crewed sectors have had for years. And we need a voice and we need to be listened to as well from a regulatory perspective. So to me that's, it's a huge jump forward from an industry perspective that we're recognized as a stakeholder, but that we're sitting around the table and what we have to make sure as well is now that our voice is heard, but our voice is heard at that and in the proper way as well within those communities, and that we carry on being that professionals, that we demonstrated how professional we are. And that we carry on doing that. So I think it's been really important for the community that we are now accepted, and that we carry on and that we carry on our VO with our voice being heard, but it's about integrating with those other communities as well. when we look at the crossover between, when we look at the crossover between the specific category into the certified category, like where is that line? is it just a person on board? Is it dangerous goods? Is it large aircraft? where the line is quite blurred between cell five, SAIL six and certified category. and where that line's drawn. So you have the rotorcraft community, you've got the general aviation community, you have airlines, you've, freight operators. You have all these people really interested in where that line is, but nobody's actually drawn it really in the sand. So I think that's another way that the integration with those other communities, we can really start from an industry perspective of actually defining where those boundaries and where those lines are. When is a general aviation, when is a rotorcraft community? When is a drone community? When does it advanced their mobility? So I think these are questions rather than answers, but at least we're at the table. and I think that's what's critically important, is that we're at the table as a recognized stakeholder.

Jim: 35:26

Julie, many in the industry feel this is a once in a generation moment to shape the future of the regulatory framework. Where is that influence being effectively exercised? Where is it being squandered?

Julie: 35:37

I think within JARUS and the influence that within JARUS that we can have on the future of the regulatory environment that we live in is critically important where there's that balance between regulators and industry, moving forward. where it's being squandered is that, and I don't know, I wouldn't necessarily use the word squander. What I would say is that, as regulators, and as industry, our time and our resources are massively limited and we need to have a positive impact. But at the same time, we can't spend all of our time sitting around tables repeating the same thing over and over again. So we need to be listened to when we speak up, we need to be listened to. So I think there is this, there's a multiple forums. We need a cohesive voice. we need, an industry representative voice. One of the problems with having an industry representative voice is, as I just said, we come from such a disparate community or made up of so many different factions made up of so many different interests as well. Are we better to have a representative body from drone manufacturers? Are we better to have a representative body of drone pilots or like we are in JEDA where we're representing all of those, but we've got a really loud voice because we represent so many, we have 24 national associations from 22 different member states. So we really have that broad outreach, which is the better solution. So I think that. Within our sector in, in aviation, generally those sectors are divided up within our, within the drone community. We have all of those sectors. So I think we need to make sure that our voice is properly heard, but that we won't always have consensus, and we need to listen to each of the voices within that community as well. And we need to allow those voices to be heard. So I don't know that we're squandering our time, but we need to spend our time wisely because we've really limited time and resources to put into this. and we also need to recognize as well, I love when people talk about, the experts in the industry. We're such a fledgling industry as well. everybody is learning all the time. And I think everybody needs to recognize that, that this is, it's about having conversations. It's about trying to flesh things out. Let's not just try and, fix everything at the one time. Try and prioritize what's really important, get that fixed, and also go for low hanging fruit as well. if we can expand the open category and let more aircraft fly in the open category, let's do it. now. let's not wait. Let's allow for Naas to apply for exemptions until we have our NPA in place and until we have our future regulatory environment change, let's allow for that to happen. And I think that will happen. that's been very proactive from EASA's point of view, to try and allow that, to try and facilitate that. So it's about simp again, it's straight back to simple stuff, low hanging fruit, easy stuff that's easy to change what we've learned. Look back to look forward. look at the lessons that we've learned over the last four years. Where have we gone wrong? Why has it been so difficult? Why is the industry not in the place it's going, it should be at this point in time. And, and really recognize those and learned from those mistakes we've made so far.

Luka: 38:10

Where do you see the current risk appetite at the EASA at the National Aviation Authorities level, it seems like they're just getting comfortable with SAIL two operations starting to get comfortable and collect data with SAIL three. SAIL four remains virtually untouched at this point. how have you observed this evolution in the adoption of risk and getting comfortable with these operations? And maybe even before you, you dive deep for the benefit of the audience, just at a high level, what these SAIL levels represent.

Julie: 38:40

Yeah. So, the SAIL level is a specific assurance integrity level, which, is dictated based on the combination of your final ground risk and your final air risk. And those numeric values added together, and they give you a formula which brings you to what your SAIL level is. So one and two are low level risk, three and four, medium level risk, five and six are higher level risk. and then above that, then we're into the certified category. So we're carrying people or we're flying large drones, or we're carrying dangerous goods. within the, within SAILs three operations. So we're talking about the low end of the medium category in the medium level of risk. there's only something like 35 authorized operations across all the EASA member states that are sitting in SAIL III at this moment in time. Now that is, that's like when you, we consider how long the regulation has been in place, and we consider that from a technical point of view and from an operational point of view. A lot of the operational safety objectives around the SAIL three are still at a declaratory basis. So what's happened is that Naas have got very involved in SAIL two, they're mainly declaratory, but SAILs three, we start having to produce more and more evidence. and operators have had to be operating for a period of time in order to be able to produce that evidence. And what you will find, and I would put money on it, although I can't statistically give you, I can't give you this statistic, but I would certainly put money on it that out of those 35 operators who were sitting at SAIL III I would say the vast majority of them are OEM-operators They're building their own aircraft, they're not using off the shelf. And the reason for that is because in order to be able to make the technical validations that you need to at a SAIL III operation, you have to be building it yourself. And you have to be, have that design iteration process in house. So you have to be able to do all of that. That's really hard. Now you're looking, if we look at, within that whole what we're talking about the sab, you're now, you're building your aircraft, you're designing your aircraft, you're manufacturing your aircraft, you've got all the responsibilities for doing all that. You're operating them, you're training pilots. You are trying to look at your business profile and your expansion, and you're trying to do all of those things within a relatively small company, and that's a lot for one company and one person. And you're providing the infrastructure and you're providing the, having to work out how you get access to the airspace. So you're doing all of these things as one single entity. Whereas in aviation, we've always done them across multiple different sectors. That's one thing in the SAILs three, in the SAIL four, there's, I, my understanding is there's zero still. I don't believe there's any SAIL four operation that's been certified. We have some, limited design verification reports have been published. I don't believe there's a SAIL four operator out there at the moment yet. there may be some in the, in, over the next short period of time, but there's none as that I'm aware of right now. and again, how on earth can we have got to this point in time and not have a single SAIL 4 operation? The SAIL 4 the design verification, because that sits entirely at the EASA remit because it's a technical standards and it's a certificate that's issued. It sits within it. Now it's a design verification report is what it's called. But effectively it is a technical standard acceptance. it sits within the EASA rather than National Aviation Authority level. So again, that has delayed the processes again with resources within EASA. And I've been somewhat critical of EASA recently in publicly, particularly around U-Space and U-Space service providers where we had ANRA technologies get the first USSP certification and it took them two years and four days to go through that process. And for any kind of small enterprise, that's a colossal amount of time to wait to be able to be operational. and to try and keep yourself funded. So I think there's been a huge, within SAILs three and SAIL four operations for operators to be able to continue their operations and build up and go through that SAIL two into SAIL three, and then possibly from SAIL three into SAIL four. Originally we envisaged that people would be able to go straight in as a SAIL four and get their design verification and start operating. That was how we envisaged the way the regulations would work. That's not the reality. Any of the operators that are coming through to SAIL three operations are starting in SAIL two, and they're building up towards that. And that takes time and that takes a long time. And for companies to be able to support themselves during that period of time, because they may not be commercially viable at that SAIL to operation, they won't be commercially viable until they can have that larger scale operations. The way Manna is operating now where you see the five drones buzzing in and out of the site all day every day, do you know that is the. What is required, but also we look towards the things like one to many, one drone, one pilot to many drones. All of those things they have taken way too long. So SAILs three, SAIL four, we thought it was gonna be Eureka. It hasn't been. I

Luka: 42:56

At the same time. Julie, sorry to interrupt. I was pleasantly surprised over the, course of the last couple years that initially the expectation was for, somebody like Manna to be able to deliver beyond vision, line of sight over, this complex air and ground risk picture, especially with, one to many type of operations. There was an expectation that one would require a SAIL four design verification. And yet, a very pleasant surprise was that no, you can do that with SAIL three and you can self declare under certain conditions. So I'd say that was one of the nice surprises, given everything that we're talking about now about, the over overburdened, regulations. I think that's, it's fair to point that out as well.

Julie: 43:40

No, absolutely. and I think what is as well is, I mean, I don't want to be, I don't wanna be negative because I see it as, I, like, I'm really positive about where the industry is and where it's going to right now, because of the lessons we've learned over the last period of time. and I think we're right to be really positive at the moment going forward because we've learned so much about the bad bits of the regulation and where they should and shouldn't be applied. And standard standardization templates, harmonization across member states. We have learned so much in the last period of time. So I think we're really getting there now. And I think the LUC, there's, there will be a major overhaul of LUCs of the, across border operations are going to become simpler. All of these areas where we've had, delays, and. additional oversight and additional, curve balls thrown at the industry that they weren't expecting. They are becoming less and less, and EASA are much more proactive now as well about, about cutting them off at the past. So I think there's, you we're really, we are in a really good place. and we're moving forward really well. SAIL four is still a problem. SAIL four, design verification, iteration of design. that's really a problem because to try and freeze a design while you go through a design verification process and not have that really iterative process. Based, we can have iteration and you can have that iterative process, but not at the speed that we need to move technology forward within the drone industry. we can't apply what we've traditionally conventionally looked from a design point of view of designing a 7, 3, 7 and having that design frozen for, 20 years before it changes. this is something we really need to look and change as to how we go about doing that. How we approve a design, how we approve it, and allow for iterations to take place while that approval is going on.

Luka: 45:12

And what's standing in between now and SAIL four primarily is managing air risk, right? and how to solve for detect and avoid what's the latest development on that front.

Julie: 45:21

Detect is great. Avoiding is still difficult. the detection rates with remote id with, the, I are looking at a big iconspicuity. we put in a roadmap for, at the last task force meeting in, in, April, we put in a BVLOS roadmap. And one of the things in it was iconspicuity, but iconspicuity across the board for all airspace users. This is not about drones being conspicuous to others. It's about everybody being conspicuous in airspace and having a platform that we can all see each other on and we can't at the moment. So, we have to look at what is a solution that is not a drone solution, it's a solution for airspace users. And I think that's what before we've looked at this as remote IDs are drone solutions. So drones can see other drones. drones need to see other drones and avoid other drones, but they also need to avoid everybody else around them. There is an interesting concept, and I know this has been bounced around in the US and there was some pushback against it, but I really support it personally. And when you, your first question was things that, that I agree with that others don't agree with and coming from being a pilot and coming from that general aviation and commercial aviation and, background. one of the things that I think we could do quite easily is reversing the responsibility and that is that if you want to go below 500 feet, then as a general aviation pilot, then it's your responsibility to make yourself conspicuous to others, whether you're in Class C, class G, whatever airspace you're in. And I think that role reversal of responsibility would have a really big impact, and would encourage conspicuity amongst the general aviation community where, and particularly the rotorcraft community where you wanna come into the airspace. We're gonna give over this airspace to drones. We're gonna allow drones to operate there. They're gonna identify each other. And if you want to go into that airspace, it's your problem to avoid them, not their problem to avoid you. And I think that would have a really big, positive effect on how we go about it with our roadmap to BVLOS on the, just that simple role responsibility, reversal of roles, reversal of responsibility. So I think that's one area where we could see a positive benefit to, quite simply. and just by awareness, and I think again, we're back to awareness, is the GA community aware of how many drones are actually flying around? if we encourage prolific drone operations, BVLOS, but detect and avoid detect is detect is getting there. The avoidance systems is a technology solution, which we need U-Space or we need something else. We need that digitization process to happen. We have U-Space service providers. We have USS Bs, say ANRA was the first one that was announced in Airspace world and we partnered with and their SORA made product. So we're working alongside them. We're loving working with them. They, and that's a digitization of SORA risk assessments as to how we go about managing those. So in order to simplify the application processes, and there's quite a lot of moves afoot within EASA, well around digitization processes, both their eSORA, their IAM, hub, all of those different things. So. There is this, detection. It doesn't solve detection and avoid, but those two things. One is detection is the conspicuity. There's a whole, there's a whole task force being put together on that with a huge engagement from the community, from the industry, so that they're looking at all the industry solutions and trying to come up with something that is suitable for the multiple different sectors. and then, as I say, the digitization of the airspace that we're all in so that we have a digital solution to this. Not trying to see and avoid based on communications between operators, because that's just a futile and doesn't work.

Peter: 48:32

and in this shift of responsibility that you describe, if an airplane operating below 500 feet is making itself digitally conspicuous, then it would be the responsibility of the drones in the area to avoid that

Julie: 48:45

No, I think if that air, if that airplane wants to enter in, it's up to them to make sure that they're aware of the other traffic within the airspace that they're operating in. So that's where we need this. We need a much higher level of iconspicuity, both from a drone, but they need to be easily able to see the drone traffic. But no, with that reversal of, no, the reversal responsibility that personally I'm talking about not, this is not EASA thing. Or please don't put, we're suddenly, we're having EASA solution that we're gonna make general aviation pilots for, responsible for seeing drones. No, this is per, this is my own opinion that I think if we had that re reversal of responsibility where if you want to enter into airspace below 500 feet as a general aviation pilot, let's say it's to approach to land at a farmer's field somewhere that you are now responsible for seeing the other traffic that's in your area, which are drone and drone traffic, but they are responsible for being conspicuous still, but you are responsible for identifying them and U-Space does that. U-Space will do that. But we don't have U-Space yet, so we need to come up with an interim solution between now and then. And that's one way of saying, right, okay. General aviation community, you need to be aware there is a means to, identify other traffic that's out there so you can use it. Now we're only looking at very short range, so, but I mean, after you're at that low level, it's probably because you're on approach approached landing or taking off.

Peter: 49:56

Okay. That's a distinction that I had not understood. I had thought the conversation around this was if a manned aircraft has ADS-B out and they're making themselves conspicuous, and they then fly below 500 feet, it would be the drones that would be moving out of the way because the drones arguably have a greater ability to avoid the airplane then does the airplane to avoid a bunch of drones. But you're saying, something different. Right.

Julie: 50:25

No. Well, what I'm saying is yes, that is the case. There's a maneuverability issue with regard to drones, but my point here is that if you turn around and you say to the, to, to the pilot in that aircraft to say, you are responsible for detecting, if you want to go below, below 500 feet, you are in uncontrolled airspace. You wanna go below, below 500 feet. It is your responsibility to identify traffic that is in the proximity to where you are. Be aware that there will be drones operating, but you have an ability to be able to identify the location of those. So therefore you have that opportunity to, to detect and avoid that traffic as a GA pilot. that's the role responsibility, that's where the responsibility is reversed, because at the moment, it is solely the responsibility of the drone pilot to avoid that aircraft, whether they're conspicuous or not. So, not saying it's the ideal solution, but I'm saying it's a solution. and I think there would, I know in the US there was a conversation about this, quite significant conversation that went on and the GA community really pushed back against it because it was, they wanted to leave it, that it was a drone pilot's responsibility if anything happened. But it's just a change. it's a big change in the responsibility, but I think it's one that has, highlights to the GA community that they have a responsibility here as well. That is not just on drone pilots to avoid traffic. Now if it's known traffic, then it's much easier. You can avoid it. You can pre-program, you can have your systems, you can have your awareness and alerts and all of those things. So you can have all of that. So as a drone pilot, yes, you still obviously need to be a responsible drone pilot, but that reversal of responsibility would have an impact as well.

Peter: 51:52

So when we think about how drone operations are going to scale out across geographies, because, we have, drone inspections operating in certain areas. We have drone deliveries operating in certain cities, and as they're being proven out, in, in the midst of all of this, there is this huge latent demand from communities all around the rest of the world that are asking, when is this coming to me? When am I gonna start to benefit from these services? Right now, doing that type of a geographic rollout appears to be a manual slow process. A lot of approvals involved and. How do you see that streamlining? if we look at what the ultimate streamlined rollout can look like, help us understand what that system looks like, what that goal is, and then how do we get to that? Because there is going to be a phase coming in the future. I mean, if we're successful with this, there's going to be a phase where the rollout is rapid but what does it take to get to that?

Julie: 52:54

Yeah, I think there's, there's a couple of different, starting at quite a high level, I think there's, the regulatory environment from a global perspective. If we have any EASA regulation, that's great. We've got our member states that we can move from one state to the other. And even within that, we find sometimes lack of harmonization when we go on to a more global scale, that regulatory harmonization, I know from a product point of view that certainly at the moment that EASA they was with the FAA, they're not necessarily as involved as they were, transport Canada, Brazil. and I believe that Australia and New Zealand and the UK are also gonna get involved, and that's about product standards and acceptable product standards. I'm trying to come to some kind of environment where products are accepted from one jurisdiction to another. So that's really important because at the moment you go through your process, at EASA, and you get your DVR, but your DVR is only valid in EASA.. Now it's gonna be recognized by some other jurisdictions, but it's not necessarily going to be, it may be just that the flight testing that you carried out to get that DVR maybe accepted, and now you have to go through a process in another jurisdiction in order to get, a special COA or whatever it might be, or a permit or something like that. So, so this product standards, I think is one that's really critical is that your product, you've developed a product, you've tested it, you've tried, you have some level of whether it's the SAILs three and you have, and you've been validated as an operational authorization within SAIL three, or you have a DVR in SAIL four, or some level of certification in SAIL five and SAIL six. That product standard needs to be accepted in other jurisdictions. You can't keep going through this process over and over again in every jurisdiction that you go into because it's just too costly and too time consuming. so that's one is the. the harmonization from a product standards point of view. the other one is the acceptance of authorization. Same thing really is down to harmonization. I think one of the biggest blockers has actually been the repeatability in manufacturing as well. When we look at the, standards within aviation that we require in order to have that repeatability when we're looking at producing these drones and the most of them are being made in, workshops and they're being built, by hand, by people in workshops, they're not coming off massive production lines. And that real scale up to huge levels of operations requires proper production lines with repeatability. and I think in the industry we've lacked that so far. we don't have these large factories producing them other than consumer drones. for enterprise drones, some enterprise drones, there's some manufacturers out there. Yes, they are. for these, the, what we've been referring to here, which are say the SAIL three operators, where we're looking at, they're producing, they're manufacturing their own drones. They don't have that. they, and if you talk, again, if you talk to Bobby, you talk to Manna he's like, I don't wanna build drones. I don't wanna manufacture drones. I'd love somebody to walk in here. And we say, here's our design. Now go build us a hundred thousand of them. and that they would go off and do that. But you have to have that quality mark over your own processes as a SAILs three operator. You have to have that, and you have to be keeping some of that in house. So the UK event have gone down. An interesting route on this, just a slightly deviate from that, where they did the SAIL marking standard. So it means that a designer manufacturer can come in and say. My drone meets all the technical OSOs and here's all the evidence for it. And now any operator who comes in, so whether they're SAIL 1, 2, 3, 4, whatever it is, if you've got a sail mark, the operator then turns around and says, okay, I wanna operate that in a SAIL two environment. So now I'm gonna go in and it might be a sail four marked drone, but they only want to operate in a SAIL two. So all they have to do is put in their operational procedures for a SAIL two drone. So I think that kind of attitude. Now that's not overcomplicated though. And I think maybe, let's see, they've got RAEs recognized assessment entities for flight worthiness that have to, you have to go through that process with them. I think there's a whole issue around that. But from a regulator point of view, if you've got manufacturers who can come in and say. My drone meets a certain standard, here's all my technical documentation and that it's validated once at one level and then operators can take that information and use it. But if an operator's required to do that, they can't use anything that's off the shelf'cause they don't have that data and they don't have that information. So I think that has prevented scalability as well. That's prevented people being able to use off the shelf drones that are easily, widely available in vast amounts to actually use them in a scalable environment. So everybody's had to manufacture their own. And when they manufacture their own, then they have the whole idea of now you've turned yourself from an operator into a manufacturer and you've to try and do everything and be everything to everybody. So I think that's where the scalability has really fallen down. And then, as I say, product acceptance and harmonization over, over, multiple jurisdictions.

Luka: 57:13

Julie, what about the use cases? What use cases do you see scaling, in the next, 12 months or so? and also as a side note. Do you have any statistics, about the, 35, SAIL three operators? What use cases are comprised in that number?

Julie: 57:27

I

Luka: 57:28

or a guess.

Julie: 57:29

I, I don't, but I would say that outta the 35, I would say that there would be two that would stand out, that as use cases. One is delivery operations, over populated areas, the Mannas. And, the other one is mapping, survey mapping. in infrastructure, kind of drone in a box. Now the drone in the box are still at SAIL two in a lot of situations, but with those drone in a box coming closer to populated environments are starting to push up into the SAIL three operations. So I'd say they're the use cases. I think there's a bit of a crossover there about the 35 SAIL threes and where the scale is going to come in the next 12 months. I think they're all very similar. I think infrastructure inspections is one of the biggest areas of growth that I see at the moment. governments and government agencies going, hold on a second. We send somebody out to visually look at this piece of railway track once every year, and we could have a drone sitting in a box beside it that pops up out when there's no trains coming, flies up along, it takes a look at it. We could have a centralized location basis. So I think they're the use cases that we're really gonna see, over the next 12 months. I think drone delivery is one. is definitely, without doubt is the scalability. We have, Manna have been out there now with their expansion plans. they've been very forthright about their expansion plans, we have, WING is there as well. We've got Amazon, we've got some really big players in the market as well with a lot of money behind them. So I think the drug delivery for sure, we're gonna see that really expanding dramatically. but infrastructure and infrastructure inspections where we can take humans outta the loop. We have this, at Avtrain, we have the three Ds. If it's dull, if it's dirty or if it's dangerous, then a drone should be doing it. And I think, there's a huge amount of acceptance now within society where, a lot of, particularly local agencies, government agencies, blue light services, infrastructure inspections, just see this as going, drones are there, that we should be using them far more. A cost is a huge factor in that as well.

Jim: 59:11

I'm so glad we got to the use cases. what's your perception of the value of the drones today versus what was perceived to be five years ago?

Julie: 59:18

Yeah. So, so again, we're back to dull, dirty, dangerous, and the cost. They would be the things we did, actually, we wrote the report for Dublin City Council for their their drone and advanced their mobility strategy for the next five years. We wrote it in 2024 for them, and we looked at this quite closely. And one of the things we did was there was a derelict building and we looked at what would've the cost have been. It was a derelict building that was the responsibility of the local council. And we looked at what would the cost of been in order for them to go in from a time, resources and danger to personnel to go in because they would've had to have stabilized the building before they could send anybody in. But to stabilize the building, they would have to send people in. So, and they would also have to shut off roads. There was a problem with the roof and the building, and we looked at the days and the man hours that would be involved in doing that. And then we looked at. Hang on, you can actually just send a drone in and do an entire survey in one day. and that from a protection of personnel, from the cost implication, the ease of access, the ease of use, and the, and reducing that danger element, that human elements that you're taking out of it is, it's just, there's no value that you can put on that, you're not putting people at risk. And the other place that I would say that, where that really comes in is in humanitarian. And, we've done some work around with the United Nations World Food Program. We've done, we've written SORAs for remote areas, remote environments, and disaster zones, for planned known, flooding environments and things like that. And, the acceptance there of risk versus the benefit for good. there's much more of an appetite, particularly for larger aircraft, car carrying larger payloads. So I think there's those areas where we can really see the dramatic impact that drones can have from a lifesaving point of view, whether it's in the environment, whether it's working at heights, whether it's working in dangerous environments, whether it's working from a humanitarian point of view, whether it's saving lives, whether it's search and rescue, we have all of these use cases out there where it's not just about dull, dirty, dangerous, and cost, it's actually life, literally life saving, both from the people that you're gonna expose to risk or the people that you're saving from risk as well.

Jim: 1:01:18

We had a, guest on a little while ago that, high level FAA person, and he generally said that value finds a way. So when there's considerable value, they find a way to get things moving through the system.

Julie: 1:01:32

Yeah.

Jim: 1:01:33

Could one argue that there's, with some of the regulatory delays or things not moving the way you would like, is there a chance that the, there's a perception that the value received from the drones isn't great enough for the risk, involved in the regulatory process.

Julie: 1:01:49

I think that mindset has changed. and I think that, and that's where it's come from, I think because we've proven the value chain now, with the, as I say, with the dull dirty dangers, with the cost implications, I think we've proved the value chain. So I think now we will see, and this is why we will see also from a regulatory standpoint, but also from a user standpoint, where, there's also, there's a little bit of the, By keeping up with the Joneses. when one department gets within, a government department gets a drone and they're, and they see them with the drone operations and they see how simple it starts making their life, everybody wants them. and I think the application across Blue Light Services is just endless. So yeah, I think it's a case of see it and be it. and we've now, we've shown, and we've demonstrated the industry over the last period of time that we're safe, but that we, that the use cases that are out there and that are available are endless and only limited by our own imaginations. So I, I think that whole thing of proving out our value, we've done it. and I think we're, that's what's really been the positive part of the industry now moving forward, is we've proven the value of them. So I would agree. But, I think we've proven it now, so let's move on and yeah.

Luka: 1:02:48

Julie, what else should we talk about?

Julie: 1:02:50

what about Digitizations of Sora? Sora mate?

Luka: 1:02:54

Alright, tell us about it.

Julie: 1:02:56

Okay. So, mentioned, that, RA partnered with ANRA Technologies and a big part of that was around what we've seen over the period of time where we've had, so much. Every operator writes their own SORA and submits it to an aviation regulator. And so an aviation regulator has to read every single word and every single page of it. So having standardized documents, having templates, having digitized processes is another way of moving the industry forward. So we partnered with, ANRA technologies, they produced a product called Sora Mate, and we partnered with them. So we now have SORA Mate powered by ANRA and delivered by Avtrain. And the whole idea of that is to digitize, standardize, SORA process. Sora can only be standardized to a certain level and to a certain degree, and we still have to have, what the idea is that, as we say, delivered by avt train is that we can assist operators then from all of the different use cases that we've worked with. We can assist operators and what should their procedures be? What should their processes be? Taking that experience from multiple different operators and multiple different clients that we've worked with, and using it to push the industry forward. So I think that whole process, it solves it from every aspect because it solves it from a regulator point of view. They then get used to having a. This is a, this has come through. SORA Mate. We also have an API in that where regulators can, have SORA Mate themselves as well, and they can directly interface with the client through the SORA Mate product. So this is the way forward is the digitization of SORA processes and the digitization of applications, whether it's for predefined risk assessments, standards scenario, declarations or for SORA. I do think the digitization of all of those processes, standardized templates. if you've got a drone under 25 kilograms, that's a multi rotor. There's not that much difference between one way of operating it and another way of operating it. they're not hugely different. So we can have reasonable templates. I'm not saying that every operator has to be identically the same. They're not. but they, if they're in particular environments and they're doing certain things with their drones and there's certain types of drones, of course we can have dropdown menus that you select what you wanna do and you've also got free text there as well. So I think it's important that we do get to that standardized application because it helps regulators as well. And if we want that low level risk, the SAIL one, SAIL two operations to be put through, in the UK now they're PDRA zero one. They're turning around those applications now with a fairly standard digital process. Their disco project. They're turning them around in about anywhere from a day to three days. and that's what we should be doing with any kind of application.

Luka: 1:05:11

What, what does that, digital Sora process look like? Let's say that, somebody wants to fly a SAILs three operation. What are the inputs? What

Julie: 1:05:17

Yeah, so, so, one of the things that, that we have is that we have the population density data already instilled in the mapping. So you can actually draw your flight geography, and that will automatically then calculate, depend on the drone that you select. It automatically calculates. Your, your contingency volume and your ground risk buffer. so it, you know straight away and then you've got your population density so you can move and adjust your flight geography while you're building your KML file. So it's a really useful, incredible tool within the SORA process. it, at the moment we're looking at it from the point of view, if you can have multiple drones, but we're only doing it for a single location, but that's the next iteration of it will be for multiple locations. So you could have it now as a, basically as a generic SORA where you look at a particular population density and it pushes everything through. So from an operator's point of view, when you go through and you go to a SAIL three operation, it will give you prompts of what type of evidence you would have to have for each of the osos that are going to be applicable because of your ground risk, because of your air risk, but also prompts as to what you can put in if you wanted to reduce your ground risk more. And it's based around, SORA 2.5 rather than SORA 2.0 because, and that's why we've only launched it in the UK so far. We'll launch it in across EASA member states later this year once we actually have, SORA 2.5. So it's giving prompts to operators as to what kind of, evidences that they should be providing to a regulator in order to have their SAILs three operation proven. And, and I think that, again, it's back to standardization, harmonization, regulators getting used to seeing the same pieces of information coming in from multiple different, from the same source, but from multiple different operators. and that interface then directly backwards and forwards with operators as well. So it's, it allows for, the presentation of the information to be uniform as well, so you know where to go to look for particular pieces of information. So I know that, previous, flight ops inspector that I used to work with is entire thing was, I just wanna see the emergency response plan. If everything goes wrong, what are they gonna do? and that was the bug bear. and each different flight ops inspectors will have their own little bug bears. But, was what is, what are they going to do if things do go wrong? What's their plan? How have they thought it through? Have they considered it? And if you've got much more standardized operations or standardized processes and procedures that operators can select to adopt into their operation, then it puts, provides uniform across the entire industry,

Jim: 1:07:24

Julie, you're extraordinarily informed and very articulate, I gotta say you, that you're very impressive. so I wanna ask a couple more quick questions. who's making money today? what's intriguing? Let's say, let's just put Manna aside, because it sounds like you're a big supporter of Manna for very good reasons. We've had Bobby out a couple of times and some of the best business lessons you'll ever listen to listening to Bobby Healey. But what intrigues you today where people could make money, And then number two, what problems need to be solved today that aren't being solved, that an entrepreneur should get involved in?

Julie: 1:07:56

Yeah, so, so, so the first one, where can people make money? I think infrastructure inspections are gonna be the way forward. I think there's a huge amount of money being expended at this moment in time on infrastructure inspections. So the opportunity is really there to cut the cost. But in a simple way, in a really easy way. and the repeatability, the fact that you can record data and you have it recorded, it's not one individual going out and inspecting a piece of railway line and saying, that's fine. It is photographed, documented. And I think that's what's really important, is that documented evidence that you can go back repeatability year on year, you can go back into that. And so I think that's one area where there's money to be made, because it's a very costly process. And the other one that I see that we're not really utilizing and should be is at airports, is actually at airports and in airport environments. Ramp inspections. Runway inspections. with this, we are working with a company called IR Kinetics in the uk. Really interesting company and they've got infrared, they have pinpoint accuracy down to down to millimeters with zero latency. So if you have that kind of ability to pinpoint exactly where a drone is at an airport environment, you can have them operating in between flights to do runway inspections and back into their box at the end of it landing precisely back into the box. So I think we are really use under utilizing them because we always just envisage that as a high risk environment without looking at what is the actual risk. There isn't. it's the same if you have a bird strike and a runway, there's, this is no different. You're introducing another element to it, and I think it can be controlled in a very positive way.

Jim: 1:09:19

It'll be interesting on the, if I may, real quickly on the runway inspection, so what is it replacing, otherwise, I'm not quite sure, and I'd be curious to know if airports or airlines, maybe the FAA would be willing to pay for something like that. Historically, it's tough to get people to pay for that area unless it affects costs in a considerable way. And I wonder like maybe like in winter operations. For example, if it would prevent somebody from shutting down a runway where they would otherwise shut it down in a busy airport, that's really big. That's a really intriguing use of a drone. Is that the kind of thing you're thinking about?

Julie: 1:09:56

absolutely. Fod, identification of fod, like when you look at, when you look at it in the airport environment, low vis procedures, all of these different, all of these different aspects where you've got a van, you've to call somebody, you've to got, you've got a van, is there a bird still on the runway where the airport craft reported a bird strike? Is there a bird on the runway?

Jim: 1:10:13

So you're shutting down the runway longer than you otherwise would you? you're not shutting down or you're reopening faster because of a more mobile way of inspecting the

Julie: 1:10:22

Yeah. And also even just PCN numbers, all the different, the ramp inspections that have to be carried out, any kind of, annually you have to have inspections of the runway, inspections of the, tire, the rubber depth on the touchdown point. all of these things could all be done by drone. Whereas now you get these massive civil engineering works in to start doing this and you're shutting down the runway for extensive periods of time or overnight, or you have them operating at night and the cost involved in that, whereas you could be analyzing that permanently all the time with drones. So I think there are real, there are use cases where there's a lot, of benefit to be seen and from a cost point of view are huge cost tickets. and then the infrastructure one, Where you've got these repeat inspections and the documentation of them and inspection of aircraft, where you need to inspect an aircraft. You're looking at, like things like lap joint inspections where you're looking at the, you can send a drone around on a pre-program flight path around an aircraft in a hangar and document and then have somebody analyzing those, this photographic evidence immediately afterwards. and you have it documented. That was what it looked like in 2024. What's it look like now in 2025? What's the deterioration year on year? You can have an exact comparison of photographs backwards and forwards for every different centimeter of that aircraft. So I think aircraft inspection's another area as well. So, within the aviation realm and within the aviation industry, we're completely utilizing another sector within the aviation industry.

Jim: 1:11:33

What was it like flying to Spitfire?

Julie: 1:11:35

I loved it. It was so much fun. It was so much fun.

Jim: 1:11:38

Just, just really quickly tell the story because I think you said your father, somewhere, I listened to this, your grandfather, flew the Spitfire

Julie: 1:11:46

Yeah.

Jim: 1:11:46

for the Royal Air Force.

Julie: 1:11:48

Yeah. Yeah. So, so my grandfather, flew the Spitfire a long time ago, and just at the end of the second World War. And, he had me in a flight simulator when I was eight years of age. And and then when I became a pilot, I had my instructors rating and I actually got to take him up flying in a small aircraft and we were facilitated actually doing a touch and go at Dublin Airport. So he came in, but I'm like, okay. You have control. And it was like, he hadn't flown in any airplane at that point in time for 30 years. And, and it was like riding a bike. He never, there was, it was so incredible and impre and impressive, but for his 90th birthday. So I got to fly this spitfire from, from, it was John Roma from Aircraft Restoration Company and the Spitfire, and it was the original Irish Air Corps Spitfire 1 6 1. And it was, had been restored back into the Irish Air Corps colors. And it was here for the Bray Air Show. And John Oma, who we did a lot of work. I flew a Grumman Goose as well, and John Oma had restored the Grumman Goose for us. So when he landed into Western Airport, we'd brought the airplane in and we'd wrapped it in cottonwood on the hangar and we'd minded it and petted it each morning and made sure it was okay. And, and then when I was heading back to Duxford, he's like, do you wanna hop in for the ride? I'm like, yep, I've got my passport in my pocket. Bye everybody. And it was like literally jumped in and we did a little small display over an air to air. It was my only centerfold. we did, got flying in Ireland, got the center page and flying in Ireland, where we did an air to air photography. And then we went, flew to D Oxford, had so much fun. And, The smell, the noise. It's just something that, it's such an experience. But my grandfather, then we got him for his 90th birthday. We bought him a present of a flight in a spitfire, and we, he went up in a spitfire. He was actually 92 when he actually went up, and they did a full aerobatic display with him in the back of the Spitfire. So we have some really incredible photographs of him, inverted in the Spitfire. And, with the biggest smile on his face, you can possibly imagine.

Jim: 1:13:24

Isn't that great? That's cool.

Julie: 1:13:26

Yeah, fantastic. But also the Grumman Goose is a second favorite airplane, so they, flow planes are the others, are the other lo and passion as well, the mixture of airplanes and water. You can't beat it.

Luka: 1:13:36

What a great way to wrap up this conversation. This was phenomenal. Thank you very much,

Julie: 1:13:40

Absolute pleasure. Really enjoyed it.