New Zealand: Recent Trials Prove Autonomous Aircraft “Can Be Successfully Integrated into Controlled Airspace” 

A first-of-its kind tri­al has tak­en place recent­ly in New Zealand which proves autonomous air­craft can be suc­cess­ful­ly inte­grat­ed into con­trolled air­space after a col­lab­o­ra­tion of avi­a­tion lead­ers flew Beyond Visu­al Line Of Sight (BVLOS), reports a press release.

Led by Wisk Aero, the part­ner­ship estab­lished “a safe process for uncrewed air­craft to access con­trolled air­space and cre­ate a sig­nif­i­cant new under­stand­ing and capa­bil­i­ty for com­mer­cial autonomous flight oper­a­tions,” explains the release. “The tri­als also offer key insights for glob­al reg­u­la­tors and indus­try play­ers to facil­i­tate fur­ther test­ing and inform rule-mak­ing.” 

The tests includ­ed the New Zealand Gov­ern­ment and indus­try part­ners. These were Insi­tu Pacif­ic as the approved Remote­ly Pilot­ed Air­craft (RPA) oper­a­tor; the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty of New Zealand (CAA)  as the reg­u­la­to­ry observ­er and Part 102 approver; Air­ways New Zealand as the air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice provider along­side Air­ways International’s Uncrewed Traf­fic Man­age­ment (UTM) Sys­tem Ayr­shire; and indige­nous-led aero­space ven­ture, Tawha­ki, pro­vid­ing the flight test­ing site. 

Cather­ine Mac­Gowan, Wisk’s VP of Asia Pacif­ic and Air Oper­a­tions, com­ment­ed, “The process­es, data, and learn­ings from these tri­al flights will help shape the future of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) and the broad­er avi­a­tion indus­try.”

Andrew Dug­gan, MD of Insi­tu Pacif­ic, added, “This series of flights, remote­ly-pilot­ed by our Insi­tu Pacif­ic oper­a­tors, puts into action the sig­nif­i­cant plan­ning and close col­lab­o­ra­tion we have under­tak­en to sup­port Wisk, and their part­ners in this evo­lu­tion­ary pro­gram. The suc­cess­ful demon­stra­tion serves as a foun­da­tion towards field­ing a safe con­cept of oper­a­tions for autonomous flight in non-seg­re­gat­ed air­space into the future.”

Please Watch Video

The­ses lat­est tri­als are part of Wisk’s mul­ti-phased test­ing pro­gram under the New Zealand Government’s Air­space Inte­gra­tion Tri­al Pro­gram (AITP). They involved mul­ti­ple flights that took place between Novem­ber 17th and Decem­ber 1st, which demon­strat­ed that a RPA can be oper­at­ed under instru­ment flight rules (IFR) in con­trolled air­space and inte­grat­ed with reg­u­lar crewed traf­fic. The flights took place at the Tāwha­ki Nation­al Aero­space Cen­tre at Kaitorete, involv­ing take-offs, land­ings, as well a both uncon­trolled and con­trolled air­space nav­i­ga­tion. 

James Evans, Air­ways New Zealand’s Act­ing Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Air Traf­fic Ser­vices, remarked, “Our pur­pose as New Zealand’s air nav­i­ga­tion ser­vice provider is to keep our skies safe, today and tomor­row. We val­ue the chance to work with an inno­va­tor like Wisk to help shape the future by sup­port­ing it to tri­al the safe inte­gra­tion of uncrewed aer­i­al vehi­cles into our con­trolled air­space.” 

Back­ground

The New Zealand Gov­ern­ment Air­space Inte­gra­tion Tri­als Pro­gram (AITP) was formed in 2019 and is a four-year, world-first pro­gram to ensure air­space sys­tems main­tain excep­tion­al lev­els of safe­ty while bal­anc­ing avi­a­tion advance­ments, com­mu­ni­ty expec­ta­tions (social and envi­ron­men­tal) and real­is­ing eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits. Wisk was the ini­tial indus­try part­ner in the pro­gram and has been under­tak­ing mul­ti­ple phas­es of test­ing, since becom­ing the first to sign a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with the New Zealand gov­ern­ment in 2020. 

For more infor­ma­tion

https://wisk.aero/

https://www.airways.co.nz/

https://insitupacific.com.au/

(Top image: Cred­it — Wisk Aero)