As many drone companies are in the process of getting federal authorization to allow for commercial drone flight,  we reached out to The Sky Guys,  who just announced this week that they have been granted Special Flight Operations Certificate (SFOC) in Canada for testing their DX-3 drone platform.

We took the opportunity to ask their President and CEO, Adam Sax,  the following questions.

• DroneLife:  Understanding that you are Canadian based company, why are you going for authorization there first rather than another market?
• Response Adam Sax:  The DX-3 is proudly developed in Canada, as such our initial flight tests will occur here where we are also serving clients across the country. We are active in other countries where the requirements are not as strict, but we won’t be conducting flight tests there, we will be deploying the DX-3 for commercial use.
• DroneLife:  What problem are you hoping to solve, and why are you different?
• Response Adam Sax:  The DX-3 has some outstanding performance specs – 24 hr. flight times and 1500 km range, which are giant leaps forward in terms of drone platforms available in the commercial market. We’ve built this platform to be military-grade but for commercial use, targeting beyond visual line of sight applications and solving the inherent problems today in long range mapping and monitoring of infrastructure such as pipelines, utility corridors, roadways, border patrol and so on. Think of all you can accomplish with a tool that can collect, stream and process information on the fly for 24 hrs a day…. Its ability to take off and land vertically eliminates the need for runways or launch rails typically required with similar UAS platforms only available to the defense sector.
• DroneLife:  What are the challenges associated with getting regulatory approval and how are you working through them?
• Response Adam Sax:  Industry is always ahead of the regulators. We actively engage regulators within Canada and abroad to help further legislation and ensure we, and the drone industry, are well positioned to make the most of all drone technology can offer. We have built the DX-3 to comply with commercial aircraft standards and will continue to do so.

As noted in their recent release, “The SFOC approval comes after months of testing and evaluation in a controlled laboratory environment. The flight testing will be conducted at Toronto Markham Airport CNU8, consisting of Line of Sight (LOS) and simulated Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) only”.

“This SFOC is a testament to the industry-leading engineering design and flight operations expertise at The Sky Guys,” noted Jeremy Wang, CTO of The Sky Guys, “Besides its outstanding performance specs, the DX-3 Vanguard comes with safety features normally found in military and commercial aviation. The system is also proudly designed and assembled in Canada, so we have tight control over the IP and production methods that make it unique around the world.”

The Sky Guys are one of a number of Canadian based companies such as SimActive who provides integrated high end mapping solutions for drone applications.