The South African Civil Aviation Authority (SACAA) announced on Sunday that it had awarded the country’s first remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS) pilot’s licence. It was issued on Friday, July 10, to SACAA employee and qualified commercial pilot Nicole Swart. (RPAS are also known as unmanned air vehicles or UAVs, unmanned aircraft systems or UAS, or remotely piloted aircraft or RPAs and are popularly but inaccurately called drones; they are flown by pilots or operators who remain on the ground.)

The award of the licence followed the introduction of the SACAA’s regulations for the operation of RPAS in South African civilian airspace on July 1. Swart, holder of an Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence, is 23-years old and is a Testing Standards Officer, Aviation Personnel Standards, at the authority.

“I am thrilled by the honour to be one of the pioneers in this field; but most importantly I am very happy that I have achieved another goal that I have set for myself,” she said. “It was important for me to get an RPAS pilot’s licence, as I believe technology is advancing rapidly and in the near future this mode of transport will be as common and necessary as cellular phones are in this era. I therefore wanted to ensure that when the time comes, I am already a step ahead. Besides, both licences are crucial in my line of work, as the department in which I work is responsible for upholding testing standards for, among others, pilots.”

The SACAA pointed out that this was also the first civil RPAS pilot’s licence to be awarded in Africa and many other parts of the world, because many other countries had not yet drawn up their regulations for civil RPAS. South Africa is one of a very small number of countries to have issued complete RPAS regulations. Director of Civil Aviation Poppy Khoza stated that her agency was “looking forward” to awarding the first commercial RPAS operating licence. However, the number of applications so far received were much fewer than expected. 

The RPAS regulations form Part 101 of South Africa’s civil aviation regulations and do not apply to toy aircraft, unmanned free balloons, autonomous unmanned aircraft and other aircraft types that cannot be “managed on a real-time basis during flight”.

Among other requirements, under the new regulations no RPAS can be operated without a letter of approval (valid for 12 months) and no RPAS can be sold unless the buyer is informed by the seller of the requirements of the SACAA. An RPAS can only be flown if it is fit to fly, its control station is compatible and interoperable with the aircraft and is connected to it in all stages of the flight, if the RPAS is controlled by “only one piloted aircraft station at any given moment in time” and if the RPAS pilot holds a valid remote pilot licence.