Fundamental operational learnings in remotely piloted flight testing of EVTOL aircraft

Wouter Plaetinck, Flight Test Engineer (Germany)

Abstract

With the rise of regional air mobility, large-scale remotely piloted EVTOL technology demonstrators are undergoing flight testing to prove their revolutionary distributed electric propulsion designs. They bring unique envelope opening constraints, concepts of operation, and permit-to-fly challenges, extending the scope of the traditional FTE job.

This paper discusses the 2022 flight test campaign with the Lilium Jet demonstrator for which a flight permit in the “specific” category of the recent EASA UAS Regulation 947 was obtained, including completion of a Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA). The SORA steps are described and applied to the Lilium test campaign. The resulting air and ground risk mitigations are integrated into the test operation and compliance with the SORA safety objectives is shown.

Finally, lessons learned about the flight permit application and the execution of the remotely piloted flight test operation are shared. These provide a valuable baseline to prepare the FTE of the future to flight test remotely piloted aircraft in Europe.