I am currently in a quandry about buying my next drone after having an accident with my Mini.
i am not certain what caused the crash but it may have been the new props i installed and because of the very fiddly nature of the props on the Mini 1 and 2 i am loathed to get one of them again. However, the twist and push nature of the Air 2 makes it a great alternative but with the added disadvantage that, even with my A2 C of C after December 2022 we don’t know if that size of drone will be able to be flown in the A2 category.
So my question to DJI marketing earlier was when do you think the first certified drones will be released.
Does anybody here have any thoughts or better knowledge on this question. I am a little surprised that 3 months after the new rules came out i personally (this might be my lack of research) have heard nothing of a certified drone even with the release of the new FPV from DJI.
I don’t think the CAA/EASA have fully defined the requirements a manufacturer must meet in order for a drone to be certified yet, and even when they do it may be a while before the onboard processor designs are updated to implement the new requirements e.g. ‘low speed mode’
I suspect certified drones won’t start hitting the market much before the end of this year, if not next year
As I see it(not to politicise the thread)the whole of Europe has to agree on any specs/requirements and they at the moment can’t even agree on something as important as the vaccine. I can see this running for years to come and we will just keep being granted extensions to the open cats.
Yeah, If it was any organisation other than the CAA then these would have had to be available before the change of regs!!!
Don’t forget that it’s actually 9 months after the initial planned requirements as they moved it due to Covid, and during that time of no flights and all of the air industry at a standstill they still couldn’t get things moving forward!!
I was in the position at the end of last year trying to debate about waiting or buying a new drone.
I did a fair amount of research and it does appear that there may be an option that DJI will be able to certify drones retrospectively, however this would involve sending the drone somewhere for this to be done.
The details are vague at the moment, and there’s no guarantee but it was enough for me to decide to buy now, instead of waiting for an unknown amount of time!!
yep!!! I also read the DJI blog, but i never said it would happen, just that it gave me a very small hope that there may be…
ultimately it was enough that meant I could happily just buy the drone I wanted and I’ll live with it either way!!
I’m already glad I did as 4 months later we still don’t have any certified drones and as there’s no mention of the air 2s being certified I think we are a long way off!!!
I had this reply from Matt at UAVHUB: If under 2KG then non C1/2 marked drones will be able to be flown under a GVC qualification in the Specific category, post 2022.
From memory, the weight category might have been 25KG but I went safe with the lower value.
I am waiting for some clarification regarding adding ADS-B DJi “AirSense” to the new and upcoming DJi Air 2S and I also do not expect any certainty from the EU regarding Class Certification any time soon as they already have their “hands full” with the current global pandemic and vaccine shortages.
DJi has already added ADS-B DJi “AirSense” receivers to their prosumer models “across-the-pond” because of the FAA’s insistence to take account of low flying crop-spraying aircraft.
