Working with the World Bank & operating in accordance with its Part 102 CAD Tonga issued Unmanned Aircraft (AU) Operator’s Certificate CAD/UAOC/01/17, Chief Pilot & CEO Mark Xavier, monitors live operations from the V-TOL Australian Head Office, in Brisbane.
A V-TOL manufactured GosHawk II Fixed Wing Surveyor aircraft is seen in real-time operating Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) at 1000ft AGL over the western end of Nuku’alofa Island, in the Kingdom of Tonga.
V-TOL Part 102 appointed Deputy Chief Pilot & project mission commander Andrew Rieker, is currently leading multi-aircraft BVLOS operations across the main Island of Nuku’alofa. In addition to standard risk mitigation, separation of V-TOL UA from manned civilian operations includes the utilisation of RelmaTech SIAM Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) technology providing live data feeds directly into Air Traffic Control (ATC) at Nuku’alofa International Airport.
“The benefit of conducting advanced operations is to test & demonstrate how safe, rapid & effective “fly-in” UA emergency response teams can be in conducting large scale wide area hi-resolution surveys of communities hit by natural disaster,” says Mark. “We look forward to conducting further long-range operations in the next few weeks demonstrating that UA operations can soon be an everyday routine occurrence in the SW Pacific region, ” he continued.
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