First and Foremost
Drone Delivery Canada (DDC) has announced that it is expanding its current testing programme to include Transport Canada’s first approved drone test range in Foremost, Alberta. DDC has already been testing its delivery drones in the Waterloo region.
In Foremost, DDC will be focusing on developing its “Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS)” capabilities. This is significant because in the US the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules require drones to be within the operator’s line of sight.
DDC said that it was looking to “move towards commercialization in late 2017/early 2018”.
In a statement issued on Tuesday (10 January), DDC said: “The Village of Foremost, with the assistance of the Canadian Centre for Unmanned Vehicle Systems (CCUVS), established the Foremost airspace for Unmanned Systems at Foremost, Alberta. The Foremost UAS Range offers a unique location for UAS research, development, and testing in Canada with 700 square nautical miles of restricted airspace. It is the first drone test range approved by Transport Canada in the country with a mandate to aid development of commercial drone applications in Canada including BVLOS capabilities.”
Tony Di Benedetto, CEO of Drone Delivery Canada, commented: “This progression marks a significant milestone for us as we move closer in obtaining our compliant operator certification status to operate commercially with our customers in Canada. To this end, we are now seeing greater visibility and our customer appetite for our drone delivery logistic platform remains very strong.”
