Jetrader - Summer 2016 - 37

TuRkey:

Drones

now
fuTuRe
and
in the

By Serap Zuvin, Erdinc Kirmizioglu, and
Yigit Turker

W

We hear new stories almost every
day about Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
(UAVs), also known as Remotely Piloted
Aircraft Systems or simply 'drones.' The
European Aviation Safety Agency, the
European Union authority for aviation
safety, focuses on building strategies
and management of safety, certification
of aviation products and the overview/
supervision of approved organizations in
European Union Member States, issued a
draft on July 31, 2015. The draft, titled,
"Advance Notice of Proposed Amendment
2015-2015," defines a 'drone' as "An aircraft without a human pilot on board,
whose flight is controlled either autonomously or under the remote control of a
pilot on the ground or in another vehicle."1
News reports have appeared in various media telling of UAVs being used for
delivering pizzas2, packages3, medicines4,
and more. Commercial usage of UAVs is
expected to substantially increase in
the coming years. Amazon, the world's
largest e-commerce company in terms
of sales, announced that a future delivery system has been designed to safely

get packages into customers' hands in
30 minutes or less using small size UAVs.5

Turkey's Regulation on
Civil Aviation Drones
Directorate General of Turkish Civil
Aviation6 ("DGCA") issued a Directive on
Civil Aviation Drones, which came into force
on February 22, 2015, and amended on
April 22, 2016. The Directive sets forth the
conditions in general under which the UAVs
can be operated for commercial purposes
within the Turkish airspace. At the first
sight, notable provisions are observed in
relation to the scope, categorization, registration and flight permissions of UAVs, etc.

Scope and Registration
The Directive divided UAVs mainly into
four different categories and provided different sets of rules based on their maximum
take-off weights. The categorization under
the Directive is as follows:
*	 UAv0: UAV with maximum take-off
weight between 500 g (including) - 4 kg
*	 UAv1: UAV with maximum take-off
weight between 4 kg (including) - 25 kg

*	 UAv2: UAV with maximum take-off weight
between 25 kg (including) - 150 kg
*	 UAv3: UAV with maximum take-off
weight 150 kg (including) or heavier.
UAVs which are i) less than 500 g, ii)
used exclusively indoors and, iii) owned
and/or operated by public authorities are
not within the scope of the Directive.
The Directive provides for the mandatory
registration of the drones. Online application for the registration of the UAVs was
given the green light on February 24, 2016.
On the very first day, there were 1,920 applications submitted. Official assumptions
are that there are approximately 4,000
UAVs in Turkey, which lead us to concur
that within 24 hours, almost half of the
UAVs were registered. UAV operators were
required to complete the registration of
their UAVs by May 1, 2016. Drone operators
flying unregistered drones will be subject to
an administrative penalty up to TRY 17,0007.

Flights Must be Permitted
Another significant provision in the
Directive relates to the permitted flight
space and the application period for flight
Jetrader  *  Summer 2016 37
Jetrader - Summer 2016

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