A Drone Pilot, training for the A2 Certificate of Competency, as part of the new Open Category of the EU Drone Regulations brought in on 31Dec 2020
As part of the new EU Drone Regulations which came in on 31st December 2020, we were introduced to 3 new Categories. The Open Category, the Specific Category and the Certified Category. The majority of drone users who fly aircraft up to 4 kg will sit inside the Open category which in itself is broken down into 3 subcategories A1, A2 and A3. Each subcategory has a type of aircraft specification ranging from C0 to C4 that will determine how you can fly in each sub-category. What we’ll look at specifically in this article is the A2 ‘close to people’ sub-category and the qualification ‘A2 Certificate of Competency’. The A2 Certificate of Competency is a new qualification that is being introduced from the 31st December 2020 to allow you to fly certain aircraft within a new set of regulation categories, regardless if you want to fly commercially or for a hobby. The A2 subcategory will allow you to ‘fly closer to people’ if you hold an A2 Certificate of Competency (A2 CofC) in the UK and are flying a C2 class aircraft or if your aircraft is less than 2 kg MTOM (maximum take-off mass). ou’ll be able to fly down to 30m of uninvolved people, or down to 5m if the aircraft has been switched to a low-speed mode with a C2 class aircraft. C2 class aircraft need to have less than a 4 kg MTOM, be ‘safely made’ as determined by EU manufacturer standards, it needs noise limitations, a remote ID and a form of geo awareness. It also needs a low-speed mode which limits the maximum speed of the aircraft to 3 m/s (approx mph). If your aircraft is between 250g and 500g MTOM (like the DJI Mavic Mini) then you will need to hold an A2 CofC and then you will be able to fly close to uninvolved people as long as you don’t overfly them. If your aircraft is between 500g and 2kg MTOM (like the DJI Mavic 2) then you will need to hold an A2 CofC and you will have to maintain a 50m separation distance from uninvolved people. You will be able to fly these ‘legacy’ aircraft under these permissions
Size: 5114px × 3404px
Location: Warren Ave Playing Field, Lewisham, London
Photo credit: © John Gaffen / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: Yes
Keywords: 2, 30th, 5, 2022, 50m, a2, aerial, aircraft, ave, c2, category, certificate, class, cofc, competency, controller, coptrz, covid, distance, dji, dmares, drone, entities, eu, field, flight, flying, football, gaffen, glasses, grass, guided, john, june, keeping, landing, lasts, legacy, lewisham, lockdown, london, maintain, mavic, minimalism, nationally, occupation, open, pandemic, people., photography, pilot, playing, practical, pro, qualification, qualifications, qualified, regulations, sane, separation, shaddow, subcatagory, sun, training, uninvolved, warren, windy, winter, working, years
