Hey Skidbita... The flight test pretty much followed the exercises that have probably been sent to you, in a mix of P-GPS and ATTI modes. He also got me to fly about 200 m away at 80 m height, spin around a few times, and return to home and land, all in ATTI mode. I also had to demonstrate a survey flight, with cancellation of the autonomous mode and RTH in ATTI mode. Then there was a fairly lengthy interview in relation to my Manuals, and the regs, as well as a hypothetical job, and how I would go about assessing the risk, and whether I would go ahead with it or not.
Thanks Lofty, it was a relief! Yeah a few interesting times coming our way in Oz, what with the sub 2kg announcement (or at least confirmed rumour). And the new manual template was a bit of a bombshell too... I can imagine there will be quite a few very pissed off people who have paid between one and two grand to have their manuals done, only to be told it was a waste of money. My CASA man said there are a lot of "training" organisations out there gouging the market for all its worth, with plenty of unsuspecting people with no aviation background desperate to get on the UAV bandwagon.
Yep got on with him well. I won't put his name on a public forum. He certainly offered for me to call any time for advice, but he's pretty over his job and the workload, so not sure how much longer he'll be in the game...
Good luck with your business venture!
Yep, 19 January, Ops Manual and Operational Library. The Ops Manual is what they want to see, and want submitted. The Library is up to you to maintain, and may only be reviewed by CASA if they audit you or the law becomes involved....
The new template is pretty easy to populate with your name, company name etc. the really annoying bit as far as I was concerned was the lame MS Word document and its crappy formatting. So that will take time to sort out if you can be bothered. I bothered. The operational library is probably the hardest bit to get right.
Mainly structural failure of CF arms at T join, and also where the landing gear mount joins at the body. The implication was poor flying skills and heavy landings. He showed me a photo of one guys Inspire that was held together with Gaffer tape.... and that was how he presented at his CASA assessment!
Hey Tyrone, if you update your manuals to the new template (if you haven't already) you may save yourself 10 hours assessment fee... $1500 at least. And yes, as a one man band you can be the fat controller AND the maintenance controller.
