A company with large warehouses near Bucharest signs the contract for a Core service. The operations director expects patrol flights to start within a few days: the drone exists, the team exists, the contract is signed.
Instead, he gets a timeline of several weeks and a list of documents he has never seen before: a “ground risk analysis”, an “air risk analysis” and a strange term, SAIL. His first reaction is confusion. He bought aerial surveillance, not an aviation course.
In fact, he has just bought documented safety. And SORA is the reason he can sleep at night, knowing that someone has taken responsibility, in writing, for every flight over his warehouse.
What SORA is and why it exists
SORA (Specific Operations Risk Assessment) is the methodology used to assess any complex BVLOS operation before it gets the green light.
It was developed by JARUS, the international body that brings together aviation authorities from around the world. EASA adopted it as the reference standard for operations in the “specific” category, which is where most BVLOS flights for critical infrastructure fall.
The idea behind SORA is simple. Before you let a drone fly out of the pilot’s line of sight, over an area with people, equipment or other aircraft, someone has to show, with verifiable arguments, that the risk is under control.
It is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the difference between “I think it’s safe” and “I can prove it’s safe”.
The two risks it measures: on the ground and in the air
The SORA process splits the risk of an operation into two separate categories.
Ground risk (Ground Risk Class)
It answers a single question: what happens if the drone falls?
That depends on the size and speed of the aircraft, the type of flight and, above all, who is underneath the flight path. A controlled industrial area with restricted access is treated completely differently from a busy city center.
Air risk (Air Risk Class)
It answers the second question: how likely is the drone to meet another aircraft in the air?
A low-altitude flight over an isolated industrial perimeter carries a much lower air risk than a flight near an airport or an active air route.
SAIL: the threshold that says how careful everything has to be
Combining the two risks produces a level called SAIL (Specific Assurance and Integrity Level). In practice, it is a score that says how rigorous the safety measures need to be: equipment redundancy, pilot qualifications, the emergency plan if control is lost.
The higher the SAIL level, the more detailed the authorization file. And the more operational maturity the operator has to demonstrate.
An operator can lower the SAIL level through concrete measures:
- active geofencing;
- a well-developed emergency response plan;
- collision detection and avoidance systems.
Each of these measures is, in effect, a written argument for safety, not a verbal promise.
What this means for the client
For a company buying a Core or Premium service, this whole process happens behind the scenes.
Operational authorization (the risk analysis, the SORA file, dealing with the aviation authority) is part of the package. It is not an extra stage to negotiate separately.
This is exactly where buying a drone and buying a complete BVLOS service differ: someone has taken on operational responsibility, on paper, before the first flight.