The past 14th of October during an important tech startup competition, someone raised his hand to ask a question during a panel of experts about new aerospace businesses. The question was simple: what advice would the big players in the sector (aircraft manufacturers and Airlines) give to a drone startup that wants to operate inside airports? The answer was quite fast and unanimous from all the experts. Drones must stay away from airports and the recommendation was to change his business model. Ironically, a few hours later one of them was giving to the same man who asked the question the award to the best Transportation and Mobility Startup in the competition. The reason? Canarddrone, a dutch startup, uses drones to inspect and calibrate the lightning systems on airport runways (e.g. PAPI lights). Until now, the process of calibrating such systems required flying a full scale aircraft repeatedly over them with a high cost for the airport.
Hello, At the very beginning of an aircraft design type(check 5 star airlines), it has to go through a long and extremely thorough test regime. This includes structural strength testing, flight testing to determine flight characteristics, etc. once this is done, then that aircraft get certified and a ‘type certificate’ is issued.
