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New ISO standard for drone training institutions published
The International Organization for Standardization ISO has published a first edition of a new standard related to the drone sector. The new ISO 23665 deals with the requirements for training drone pilots that will fly within sight of unmanned aerial vehicles. The standard also defines requirements that a training organization must meet.
Requirements for training
The new ISO 23665:2021 has as its subject. The standard covers the following matters:
1) requirements regarding knowledge, skill, attitude and qualification criteria for drone pilots and training organizations providing training to remote pilots and other personnel involved in unmanned operations;
2) training curriculum and content for training;
3) qualification and assessment criteria for the training organizations;
4) general procedures for training UAS staff.
The standard was drawn up in consultation with experts and training institutions active in the drone sector. At the end of 2020, the content of the standard was finally established, and the first edition of the ISO 23665:2021 was published at the end of February.
The ISO 23665 is particularly relevant for training institutions that to train drone pilots that want to become active in the Specific category. For the Open category, the training requirements and requirements for the trainers are prescribed from EASA. For the Specific category, however, this is not the case, so there is a lot of need for uniform guidelines.
Second edition on the way
, a second edition of the ISO 23665 has already been working on, among other things, standards for ‘semi-regulated’ functions, such as running BVLOS flights in the Specific category. The European Regulation 2019/947 does set requirements for this, but there is no question of a standardized training course or license.
In the second edition of this ISO standard, attention is also paid to ‘unregulated’ functions such as the role of observer. A drone operator is required to develop course materials for staff who perform such tasks. In doing so, one could fall back to the ISO standard.
Other Standards
The ISO 23665 is the fifth standard released in the standard series for dron-related organizations. The standard that appeared first concerns ISO 21384-3. This concerns the organizational aspects of the deployment of drones. The second standard ISO 21895 deals with the categorization and classification of civil unmanned aircraft. ISO 21384-4 is vocabulary and ISO/TR 23629-1:2020 contains feedback on a standard for UTM.
At a later stage, ISO 21384-2 will follow,
