Operational Readiness: Practical Advice for BVLOS Operations

In the near future, some of the first seeds of the fourth industrial revolution will begin to bear fruit. Highly automated robots will begin deploying across metropolitan areas to deliver lifesaving medications, consumer goods, inspect critical infrastructure and even be the first on scene responding to emergency calls. It is important to remember that even though great technological progress is at hand, we currently occupy a transitional space. One that still contains many challenges and uncertainties. Fortunately, we have over 120 years of aviation history and culture to glean insights from. It is in this context that I wish to provide some actionable guidance to help you prepare for what’s ahead. The future of next-generation airspace integration is upon us and I couldn’t be happier.

Operational readiness can be thought of as a state of being. One where an organization, team or individual is prepared to execute its intended functions. This state of being bridges the gap between mission planning and mission execution and oftentimes is the difference between mission success or failure. In order to achieve this state, focusing on three pillars will harness your efforts to transform intention into execution.

Safety

‍We’ve all heard the phrases. Safety first. Safety is everyone’s responsibility. Safety is common sense. What I find troubling about those phrases is that they are non-actionable. Telling someone to be safe is not much different than saying “good luck” as they embark upon a new adventure. What do they need to know? What do they need to do? To complicate this further, safety is both subjective and objective. Objective examples would be deliberately exceeding operational limitations or breaking from established norms. These and others like it can be measured and managed. Subjectively, what “feels risky” to one person may be completely within another’s comfort zone. So telling someone they should “be safe” or lecturing about “flight safety” is pretty unhelpful without some clear action to take. It is in that spirit, I offer this advice: create a just culture of safety through open communication & honest reporting of mistakes. Meet quarterly as a team and share what you have learned over that period of time. Analysis of flight telemetry, maintenance data and incident reporting are the essential and objective foundations for those quarterly meetings. This is how we learn and grow, by making our own mistakes and learning from the mistakes of others. The best practices and procedures for your organization on how to perform the specific missions you want to achieve will come from the collaborative learning environment a Safety Culture creates. Do this and I promise you will set yourself up for long term success.

Standards

‍‍This is a broad subject, especially as it relates to uncrewed aviation operations. An entire white paper could be written about this alone. Some examples of different kinds of standards include regulatory, technical and quality. What I want to highlight for you are performance standards and I’ll give the practical advice up front: identify the required level of performance you need for success and work backwards from there. Specifically, performance standards for two categories: machine and human. What capabilities do you need out of the equipment? What actions do the humans involved need to be able to perform? Asking those questions and others like it early on, will help you identify specific capabilities to look for in the equipment you procure as well as the knowledge, skills and abilities your personnel will need to achieve success. Format these requirements into a GO/NO-GO gating table to perform a comprehensive gap analysis and you have your roadmap. This will help to identify capability gaps and skill-levels that have yet to be addressed. Doing this analysis will save you time, money and loads of frustration.

Training

‍Training for any aeronautical purpose is about teaching people to develop correct habits and apply them during flight operations. When done with intention, training becomes the ultimate differentiator and creates a competitive advantage top performers can use to distinguish themselves in highly competitive environments. BVLOS operations require human operators to become highly adaptable to 3-dimensional spatial relationships. That means mastering new concepts like system logics, autopilot states, automated system behaviors and the sequence of events that arm and trigger them. For many this will be new, requiring ample practice to become proficient. The instructional methods applied will determine the habit patterns that form.

To be sure, BVLOS is a thinking person’s game. Critical skill development builds the adaptability required to respond to unplanned situations like lost C2 links, degraded GPS or emergency parachute deployments. In my experience, the most effective training programs enhance the learner’s ability to think, adapt and decide before acting. Whether you build this in-house or hire a vendor, you want training that is scenario based and tailored to your missions and the real world operating environments.

I am not going to try to wax poetic here in an effort to wrap this up with a pretty bow. My guidance to you is straightforward. Develop a Safety Culture. Identify your Performance Standards. Implement Scenario Based Training to enhance critical thinking and adaptability to unplanned situations. I’d wish you all luck but perhaps it would be more practical to leave you with one final piece of advice instead: operate with intention, your success will depend on it.

This article provides insights on best practices to prepare for operations under a proposed rule and is provided for information only. It is not legal advice, and it does not represent an FAA determination about any product or program.