The short version: I have passed my GVC, the certificate the CAA requires as evidence that the pilot is competent. It is the baseline rather than the finish line. The company's Operational Authorisation is the substantial piece of work, and that still goes to the CAA at the start of October.
A more cheerful piece of writing than the last one, though I want to be careful not to oversell it.
Six days ago I wrote to tell you our launch had moved to late October. Since then I can now confirm I have passed the GVC course.
What the GVC actually is
The General VLOS Certificate is how a remote pilot evidences competence for Visual Line of Sight operations in what the CAA calls the Specific Category. It covers air law and airspace, meteorology, human factors, the aircraft, and the procedures around a flight. There is theory, an exam, and a practical flight assessment.
It is valid for five years. It is also on its way out: the CAA stops issuing the GVC on 31 December 2027, after which it is replaced by the Remote Pilot Certificates, RPC-L1 through L3. Existing certificates stay valid until they expire, provided the Operational Authorisation they are used under accepts a GVC as evidence.
Why it matters less than it might sound
This is the part I want to be straight about, because it would be easy to make more of this than it deserves.
The GVC is a minimum. It is the competency standard the CAA expects of anyone flying commercially in the Specific Category. Passing it does not authorise an operation, it does not say anything about the aircraft, and it does not by itself let us put a 70 litre machine over your field. It says the person on the controls has met the required standard. That is necessary, and it is not sufficient.
It is worth drawing the distinction properly, because the two get muddled constantly:
The GVC is personal. It belongs to me and I carry it between jobs.
The Operational Authorisation is the company's. It is granted to HarvestHawk against a specific operation: this aircraft, these procedures, this safety case, this way of working. It is also the document that decides whether a GVC is accepted as evidence of competence in the first place.
What is actually left
The SORA, and it is the larger part by some distance.
It covers the aircraft's flightworthiness, the operating procedures, the risk assessment, and the safety case for putting an aircraft this size over British farmland. The pilot side is one element of it. Our application goes to the CAA at the start of October under the new framework they advised us to submit against, and as I said last time, the CAA decides when it is granted and may need longer than we hope. If the date moves, you will read it here first.
So the honest position is this: a requirement that had to be met has been met, on schedule, and the bigger piece of work carries on exactly as described. The launch date has not changed.
Nothing changes for crop mapping
Worth repeating, because it gets lost every time authorisations come up. Crop mapping and scanning are flying right now. They do not need the Operational Authorisation, they never did, and we are booking them as normal.
If you want your fields mapped this season, we can be there. If you are waiting on spraying, spreading or seeding, we are taking bookings for late October and we will tell you the moment we know more.
Barley's take"He passed. He has told the postman, both his parents and a man in the queue at the feed merchants. I have been shown the certificate four times. I cannot read, and he knows I cannot read."
Until next time,James