The ATLAS Centre hosts the first flight out of sight made in Spain with UAS

The ATLAS Test Flight Center, facilities driven by FADA in Jaén, held last august the first flight Beyond Visual Line of Sight made in Spain with an Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS), since the new regulation of this kind of aircrafts was approved. It’s the flight of this characteristics and civil kind that has been made in Spain by a UAV, previously approved by the Spanish Authority in Aircraft Security (AESA).

The flight was possible because ATLAS counts with his own segregated airspace, an established condition in the new law which let UAS flight beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). Specifically the plane went away for more than 8 km from the centre facilities and made a distance of 18km, an altitude of 3.300 feet above mean sea level.

The operation was coordinated with the Control Centre (ACC) in Seville, the Southern Regional Directorate of Air Navigation AENA, and was conducted by CATEC pilots using the aircraft Viewer, an aircraft with a wingspan of 4.8 meters a maximum take off weight (MTOW) of 15 Kg., and a cruising speed of 21 m/s (about 70 km./hr or 40 knots). The aircraft carried a transponder during the test development to facilitate monitoring.

This first BVLOS flight places the ATLAS Centre and CATEC at the forefront in the area of R&D with UAS/RPAS, consolidating its infrastructure and technological capabilities as strategic internationally and one of those to play a prominent role in the future this emerging sector, one of the largest projection for its civil or commercial applications.