You're reading it here first: In a first, the Central government has given its nod to government and educational institutions to take up "beyond the visual line of sight" (BVLOS) operations provided that they meet the criteria of the Directorate General Of Civil Aviation. MediaNama has learnt that this decision was taken in a BVLOS expert committee meeting recently in view of the myriad proposals the Ministry of Civil Aviation was receiving with regard to the use of drones to deliver COVID19 vaccines. What is BVLOS? As opposed to "visual line of sight" (VLOS) operations which underlines that the pilot of the drone has to maintain continuous, unaided visual contact with the unmanned aircraft, BVLOS drone operations allow for piloting a drone remotely, without having to be manoeuvred by looking at it. Speaking to MediaNama, Amber Dubey, Joint Secretary at Ministry of Civil Aviation and head of the Drones Division said, "Based on the requests received, it has been decided that government entities and leading academic institutions can apply for BVLOS experiments; provided that they meet all the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) requirements." The decision was taken by the inter-ministerial BVLOS experiment committee headed by Aviation Secretary Pradeep Kharola recently. Notes from the meeting, seen by MediaNama, state, "BVLOS experiments shall be allowed for academia and State governments on a case-to-case basis, subject to condition that they meet all requirements for BVLOS experiments as applicable to other consortia." The consortia here refers to the around 10 drone companies who…
