As of this weekend it is possible to use the ballistic method of determinating the minimum flight geography, contingency volume and ground risk buffer.

Based on the location, mission parameters and UAS parameters the ballistic method calculates the minimum of safe distance for drone operations.

Why the ballistic method for drones?

Currently in most european countries there are 2 options for determining flight geography, contingency volume and ground risk buffer.

1:1 method

With the 1:1 method the height of the contingency volume is equal to the ground risk buffer length. Depending on how high you fly this could make the ground risk buffer quite large. In most cases this is not practical or not even possible to conduct the operation within EU regulations.

Below an example with the following parameters:

Drone: DJI M300RTK

Speed: 5 m/s

Flight height: 41 meters

This results in a contingency length of 14 meters and a ground risk buffer of 52 meters.

Ballistic method

The ballistic method is a method to calculate the flight geography, contingcy volume and ground risk buffer based on actual parameters of the mission and the drone.

For the contingency volume it takes into account the time and distance needed to act upon a circumstance and stay within the contingency volume.

For the ground risk buffer the length is based on the mission speed and the flight height to determine what area you need to take into account for a safe operation.

With the same parameters as before this results in a contingency length of 14 meters and a ground risk buffer of 16 meters.

This is a huge difference of 26 meters for the ground risk buffer. Depending on the environment where you fly this could lead to possible to fly or a nogo.

Based on the EU regulations for all flightplans you need to determine the mentioned distance and volumes. Dronedeck does this for you automatically which is very convinient.

Colors

As per EU regulations all areas are also colored as per the SORA analysis method.

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