RTCA and EUROCAE organized a Workshop, hosted by Volocopter on 17 May 2022 in Bruchsal (Germany), to ensure the joint committee work, EUROCAE WG-117 with RTCA SC-240, is on the right track. The Software Advancement workshop provided the opportunity for 14 experts on site and more than 100 online, from regulators (FAA, EASA) and industry (software, UAS, VTOL domains) to exchange ideas and identify a shared way forward.

Attendees at the workshop met for 6 hours, and at the conclusion of the discussions EUROCAE and RTCA were able to identify three important outcomes from the workshop.  First, they proved the need for each entity to agree on the scope of low-risk applications, identifying possible implementation use cases and defining acceptable Software Levels of Assurance.  Second, participants agreed further assessment and agreement is needed to make sure standards will be useable by the aviation community.  And finally, the group identified the need for additional participation by contributing experts from the non-conventional aviation sector moving forward.

“Regarding our partnership, I think the main element is that it is a long-standing situation, as we share more than 20 Working Groups working jointly to produce similar standards,” said Alain Vallee, a technical expert supporting WG on UAS, C-UAS, VTOL and other groups, and a member of EUROCAE since 2008.

“I couldn’t agree more,” said RTCA CEO and President Terry McVenes.  “Our strong working relationship, typified in an event such as this, shows how we can tackle any level challenge put before us.  We have said from the onset of UAS, that we will work to safely integrate them into the aviation ecosystem and that’s precisely what we’re doing during the software development stage.”