In March 2018, a series of test flights from the Dutch mainland to the island Schiermonnikoog are planned to take place. One of the drones that will be used is the delftAcopter from the MAVLab of Delft University of Technology.

This hybrid biplane drone has already shown that it can conduct a long-distance medical delivery at Australia’s UAV Medical Express Challenge 2016. The MAVLab team now aim to deploy their knowledge and experience in the Netherlands as well.

On 30 November, a declaration of intent was signed at Groningen airport Eelde by the partners of this project: the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Province of Drenthe, the Royal Dutch Touring Club ANWB, Groningen university hospital ambulance service, TU Delft MAVLab and Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR).

Beyond visual line of sight
The test flights are aimed to build experience in flying ‘Beyond Visual Line Of Sight’ (BVLOS), and to investigate how rules and regulations could be adjusted to create opportunities for deployment of drones for example medical deliveries, agriculture and inspections of infrastructure.