Getting informed before flying
The information obligation falls on the remote pilot, before every operation, and the word that makes it binding is ‘updated’. It is one of the few obligations in the regulation that no on-board equipment can take over for you.
Key points
- Point UAS.OPEN.060(1)(b) requires the remote pilot, before starting the operation, to obtain updated information about any UAS geographical zone published by the Member State of operation.
- A map consulted last month is worth nothing: temporary zones (a demonstration, a forest fire, an official flight) appear and disappear, and published zones have a period of validity.
- Point UAS.OPEN.060(2)(c) further requires compliance with the operational limitations defined in those zones. Where one of them requires a prior flight authorisation (Art. 15(1)(a)), it is obtained beforehand, not on site.
- Geo-awareness does not replace the check: it alerts on the basis of the data loaded (Art. 2(15)), and it is the operator who updates them according to the intended location of operation (UAS.OPEN.050(5)).
- AMC1 UAS.OPEN.050(4)(c) sets out the chain: the operator downloads the latest version of the geographical data and makes it available to the remote pilot, so that he can load it into the aircraft.
- A class C0 aircraft carries no geo-awareness function (Part 1 of the Annex to the Delegated Regulation does not require one) and that waives nothing. A drone without an alert is not a drone without a zone.
- The weather belongs to the same preparation: AMC1 UAS.OPEN.060(1)(c) asks you to check that conditions are compatible with the manufacturer's manual at the start of the operation AND for its whole duration. The forecast is part of the preparation, not of the reaction.
The trap. Two symmetrical errors, and the examination likes both: the map downloaded once and for all, and the illusion of automation. An aircraft that triggers no alert proves nothing if it still carries the zones of another country or of a previous season.
Source
Implementing Regulation (EU) 2019/947 (CELEX 02019R0947, consolidated on 01/05/2025), art. 2, point 15), art. 15, paragraph 1, point a), and Annex Part A, points UAS.OPEN.050(5), UAS.OPEN.060(1)(b) and UAS.OPEN.060(2)(c); AMC1 UAS.OPEN.050(4)(c) and AMC1 UAS.OPEN.060(1)(c) (ED Decision 2019/021/R); Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/945 (CELEX 02019R0945, consolidated on 24/06/2025), Annex, Part 1