Drones are increasingly common and used for both commercial and recreational purposes. While they can enable new applications, their integration into aviation systems presents challenges. Personal mass transport and parcel delivery by drone in segregated low-level airspace is an uncertain scenario given current technological and regulatory limitations. For safe operations, drones require robustness, sensors for collision avoidance, and integration into air traffic management. General aviation should support responsible drone integration and not reject them, as drones could introduce new pilots.

1. The future of Drones, UAVs, UASs,
RPAs in Germany and Europe
Dr. Michael Erb
Managing Director AOPA-Germany

2. Drones are a reality and an
important economic factor
- Military Drones
- Professional/Commercial Drone Applications
- Law Enforcement, Engineering, Aerial Photography
- Drones for Personal Fun
- Can be anything between harmless fun, competition, nuisance,
air safety risk and security risk
- Critical only if operators don´t read or follow the instructions:
Stay low, in line of sight and away from aerodromes and TFRs
- Insurance, registration, licensing and maybe even electronic
visibility would be useful requirements
- Enforcement of the rules is a must, but difficult in practice
- Worldwide we have 200,000 piloted airframes,
worldwide drones are +2 Mio. with continous growth

3. Some drone scenarios are very
uncertain, but scary for GA
Personal Mass Transport and Parcel Delivery, performed in a segregated low-
level airspace band.
Are these scenarios all non-sense and the next business-bubble we can
expect to implode, or rather ambitious but realistic?
“The company’s aeronautics experts propose that a 200ft slab of air – located between 200ft
and 400ft from the ground – should be segregated and reserved for state-of-the-art drones
equipped with sophisticated communications and sensing equipment and flying at high
speeds of 60 knots or more. A further 100ft of airspace – between 400ft and 500ft – would
be declared a no-fly zone to act as a buffer between the drones and current conventional
aircraft such as passengerand cargo planes, thus mitigating fears about the impact on
manned flight or dangers posed to people on the ground.”

4. Segregated Low-Level Airspace
just for Parcel Drones?

5. Drones for Personal Mass Transport?

6. But are these scenarios realistic?
Christmas time is the traditional time for both parcels and snowstorms!

7. Massive regulatory and
technological challenges
• Drones are not yet robust enough, especially for all
weather ops
• The required data-network for operations out of the line
of sight is not existing
• Integration into the ATM system is not achieved
• Collision avoidance is an issue, especially with EMS-
Helicopters, Aerial Work Operators, etc.
• “Amazon Air 30 minute delivery service“ was already
announced in 2013 for 2015. But where are we now?

8. Drones can be great …
… and exciting, finally bring youngsters for low cost into GA.
Like myself: MSFS in 1983 at age 13, PPL in 1993 at age 23

9. What can we do?
• For GA it will be a mission impossible to stop drones/UAVs
• Drones/UAVs can be seen as the new entry-level into GA
• GA should support an early and safe integration of drones
into the aviation system (with mandatory licensing /
registration / insurance)
• GA in Europe could benefit from an aviation-mobile-data-
network built for drones/UAVs
• We should not behave as arrogant towards drone-operators
like the airlines tend to behave towards GA:
– “What do you unprofessional guys want in our airspace?“
• I would love to get a drone for X-mas