The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) earlier this month published ORS9 Decision 60, adopting new and updated Acceptable Means of Compliance (AMC) and Guidance Material (GM) for UK Regulation (EU) 2019/947 to support consistent implementation of the UK SORA framework.
“The updates refine AMC1 to Article 11 and strengthen Annexes A, B and E by clarifying evidence expectations, methodology and integrity and assurance requirements,” says the CAA. “This will improve the quality and traceability of submissions, reduce avoidable findings, and support proportionate, consistent assessment outcomes for operators and the CAA.”
The UK has aligned with JARUS Annex A v2.5 content and wording with the addition of a new section ‘Operations with reduced maximum speed’, enabling an applicant to reduce the Intrinsic Ground Risk Class using software or mechanical enforced operational speed limitations. “
These updates and amendments to GM1 Article 11 Annex A with the addition of new guidance material include:
- Added new guidance for what is the declarative approach
- Updated the guidance for what is an agreed compliance basis approach
- New guidance explaining what compliance evidence approach is
- Added a new table summarising declaration of compliance vs agreed compliance
basis approach vs compliance evidence approach
- Guidance on collecting and storing evidence
- How to present compliance evidence
- New guidance material developed for documenting and presenting the intrinsic ground risk footprint
- Added new material and data for calculating the flight volume, contingency volume and ground risk buffer
- New guidance for determining the maximum VLOS and BVLOS distances
- A new section for operations with reduced maximum operating speed
Annex B to Article 11 – Ground risk mitigations – Acceptable means of compliance and guidance material has now been provided for all the ground risk mitigations. The following is a brief summary of the new acceptable means and guidance material
- Added AMC to calculate penetration impact of UA on a structure
- Provided examples on penetration analysis M1A
- Added industry standards and AMC for M1C Technical means to detect people
- Added AMC for M2 mitigation, recognising industry standards for parachutes, flight termination systems (FTS).
- Provided critical area calculation method for M2 mitigation assessment
- Provided few examples on applying the AMC
- Extensive guidance on all the ground risk mitigations
Annex E to Article 11- Containment – Acceptable means of compliance and guidance material provided for untethered containment. The new AMC include:
- Recognition of consensus industry standards for technical features such as flight termination systems, geo-caging
- Recognition of mitigations validity in the adjacent area and providing slightly lower requirements when such mitigations are valid
- Providing both qualitative and quantitative means to demonstrate compliance
- Low containment being made declarative and medium containment only requiring an agreed compliance basis
- Examples provided on the application of the AMC for untethered containment
For more information
https://www.caa.co.uk/publication/download/29235
(Image: Shutterstock)