Free screening tool

SORA readiness screening for specific-category drone operations

Seventeen questions about how your operation actually runs, and what you can show for it, before you put an application for a specific-category operational authorisation together. It takes about ten minutes and gives you a ranked view of where your preparation is thin. Everything runs in your browser.

Who it is for

Drone and UAS operators preparing a specific-category application, whether by the SORA route, a predefined risk assessment or a standard scenario, and organisations that have an authorisation and are about to change something material about the operation.

What you get

A ranked list of where your own preparation is weakest, the individual questions behind each section, a separate screen for change and open issues, and an advisory next step. The output is written so you can take it into an internal meeting.

What it is not

It is not a risk assessment and not a pre-assessment of an application. It does not determine a ground risk class, an air risk class, a SAIL or a robustness level, and it has no standing with any authority. Only the competent authority assesses an application.

Before you start

Answer for how the operation runs on a normal working day, not for how the manual says it should run. If crews set the site up differently from the written description, the honest answer is the one that describes the site. The value of the output depends entirely on that.

Use Not known where you genuinely do not know. It is treated as exposure rather than as a neutral answer, which is the point: not knowing whether containment has been tested is itself the finding. Do not enter client names, site coordinates, personal data or anything else confidential. Free text is not needed anywhere.

0 of 17 questions answered

Section A · 20 of 100 pointsConcept of operations and operating volume

Whether the operation you want authorised is pinned down, and whether the volumes you drew can be explained to someone who was not there.

Q1 · Operation definition · 7 pointsHow precisely is the operation you intend to apply for defined, in terms of aircraft, area, airspace and flight profile?
Q2 · Volume and buffers · 7 pointsHow were your flight geography, contingency volume and ground risk buffer arrived at, and can the reasoning be reconstructed?
Q3 · Description matches practice · 6 pointsHow closely does the written operational description match the way crews actually set up and fly the job on site?
Section B · 24 of 100 pointsGround risk basis and containment

What you used to establish who is under and around the operating volume, and what actually keeps the aircraft inside it.

Q4 · Ground risk basis · 7 pointsWhat did you use to establish the people at risk under and around the operating volume, and how current is it?
Q5 · Ground risk mitigations · 6 pointsWhich ground risk mitigations do you rely on in the field, and what evidence exists that they perform as claimed?
Q6 · Containment in practice · 7 pointsWhat actually keeps the aircraft inside the operating volume, and what happens the moment it reaches the boundary?
Q7 · Adjacent area and response · 4 pointsHow well do you know what lies beyond your buffer, and who responds if the aircraft ends up there?
Section C · 22 of 100 pointsAir risk, airspace and collision mitigations

How well you know the airspace you fly in, and what reduces encounters with crewed aircraft before and during flight.

Q8 · Airspace picture · 8 pointsHow well do you know the airspace you operate in, including class, aerodrome proximity and the traffic that actually appears at your altitudes?
Q9 · Strategic air mitigations · 7 pointsWhich limits, times, agreements or airspace arrangements reduce your exposure to crewed aircraft before the flight starts?
Q10 · Tactical deconfliction · 7 pointsDuring flight, how do you detect and give way to crewed aircraft, and does that hold beyond visual line of sight?
Section D · 28 of 100 pointsProcedures, crew, aircraft and safety management

The organisational side of the file: procedures that are used as written, crew records per person, aircraft evidence, and how field experience gets back into the documents.

Q11 · Procedures and evidence · 7 pointsHow were your normal, contingency and emergency procedures established, and how do you know crews can carry them out?
Q12 · Crew competence records · 6 pointsWhat can you show for each crew member about training, checking and recent experience on this specific operation?
Q13 · Aircraft technical evidence · 6 pointsWhat do you hold on the aircraft itself, covering configuration, command link performance, maintenance and any design claims?
Q14 · Safety management arrangements · 5 pointsHow do occurrences, findings and internal checks travel from the field back into your procedures?
Q15 · State of documentation · 4 pointsWhat state would your operations manual and evidence set be in for someone outside your organisation reading it cold?
Section E · 6 of 100 pointsChange and unresolved-issue screen

These two questions are shown separately from the ranked sections. A known change or open issue is reported on its own and cannot be offset by strong answers elsewhere.

Q16 · Change since last assessment · 5 pointsWhat material change to aircraft, area, airspace, procedures or the assessment methodology has happened or is planned, and how was it handled?
Q17 · Unresolved issues · 1 pointsWhich known unresolved safety issues, open findings, occurrence trends or outstanding authority queries apply to this operation?

Nothing is sent when you calculate. The scoring happens in your browser.

Your result

Answer all 17 questions above, then choose Show my result.

Send this to NorthSky

If the output points at something you would rather talk through than guess at, send it over with a short note about the operation.

NorthSky works on operational documentation, risk analysis, airspace questions and audit preparation. A screening result is a useful starting point for a conversation because it shows which parts of the preparation are missing evidence rather than missing text. What arrives is the answers you selected and anything you write in the note.

Nothing leaves your browser unless you choose to send it. What we do with it if you do is set out in the tools privacy note.

NorthSky — SORA readiness submissions

Common questions

Does this tell me which SORA class or SAIL my operation falls into?

No. It does not determine an intrinsic or final ground risk class, an initial or residual air risk class, a SAIL, a containment level or a robustness level. Those come out of the methodology applied to your specific operation with your own data, and the competent authority reviews the result.

Is this a pre-assessment of my application?

No, and it should not be presented as one. It screens how prepared you appear to be, in your own words, before an application exists. It has no standing with any national aviation authority, forms no part of any authorisation process, and nobody outside your organisation sees the result unless you send it.

Which version of the methodology is this written against?

It is written against SORA 2.5, which EASA introduced into the acceptable means of compliance and guidance material for Regulation (EU) 2019/947 through ED Decision 2025/018/R of 29 September 2025, consolidated in the June 2026 revision of the Easy Access Rules for Unmanned Aircraft Systems.

We plan to use a predefined risk assessment or a standard scenario, so is this still relevant?

Mostly yes. A predefined risk assessment or a standard scenario removes the work of deriving the risk classes, but you still have to show operating limits, procedures, crew competence, aircraft evidence and a manual. Those sections apply either way. The tool does not tell you which route fits your operation.

Why is Not known scored as badly as a serious gap?

Because for the questions where it is offered, not knowing is the finding. An operator who cannot say how the ground risk buffer was sized, or whether the boundary behaviour has ever been tested, is in the same position as one who has not done it, until the answer is established and written down.

We scored low. Does that mean we are ready to apply?

It means nothing obvious is missing from the areas this tool looks at, which is worth knowing. It does not mean an application would succeed. A low score with an open finding or an unhandled change still shows those separately, and the assessment itself is a separate piece of work.

Is NorthSky connected to EASA, JARUS or the national authority?

No. NorthSky is an independent Norwegian aviation consultancy, the trading name of RMX Drift AS. SORA, PDRA, STS and Regulation (EU) 2019/947 are named here as public frameworks, and this tool is not issued, reviewed or recognised by the bodies that publish them.

What does the paid work add that this does not?

This orders your own uncertainty. It does not say what to do about a particular site, aircraft or airspace. Establishing a population basis, sizing volumes for a real aircraft, testing containment behaviour and building an evidence set that a reviewer can follow are site-specific work with field evidence behind them.

Scope of NorthSky’s work

NorthSky provides operational risk decision support and advisory guidance. Outputs do not constitute regulatory certification, aerodrome licensing, compliance verification, or formal authority determinations. This tool screens the state of an operator's own preparation. It does not speak for, and has no relationship with, EASA, JARUS or any national aviation authority, and naming those frameworks here is a reference to public documents only.

How this tool scores

Each question scores 0 to 3 and carries a weight. The weights sit inside five sections, and the section weights add to 100, so a high score means exposure concentrated in the areas that carry the most preparation work rather than a long tail of small gaps. Ground risk basis and containment, and the organisational sections on procedures, crew and documentation, carry the most weight because they are the parts that take field work rather than drafting. The change and open-issue questions are shown separately and are never averaged away by strong answers elsewhere.

This is model version 0.9 of northsky-sora-readiness. The weighting is a professional judgement about where preparation usually falls short, and it is not yet calibrated against completed assessments, so treat the ranking as a way to order your own work rather than as a measurement. The model was written against the current published version of the methodology and the current published state of the European rules, and it is revised when those move.

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