When you leave the open category

The open category ends where the risk grows: flights above 120 m, dropping material, flights beyond visual line of sight, drones of 25 kg or more, and flights over people with drones that lack the right class mark all move into the specific category (EASA). For an autonomous mission the trigger is usually BVLOS: as soon as nobody keeps the drone in sight, the open category no longer applies.

Four routes, from lightest to heaviest

Route	How you get it	Scope in EASA's summary
Standard scenario STS-01	Declaration to your national authority	VLOS, below 120 m, in an urban environment, take-off mass under 25 kg, C5 class mark
Standard scenario STS-02	Declaration	BVLOS, below 120 m, over a sparsely populated area, under 25 kg, C6 class mark; range under 2 km with airspace observers, otherwise under 1 km
PDRA-01	Authorisation based on a pre-defined risk assessment	BVLOS, below 120 m, in controlled airspace over a sparsely populated area, under 25 kg
SORA authorisation	Your own Specific Operations Risk Assessment, then an authorisation	Anything the scenarios and PDRAs do not cover

A fifth instrument sits above these: the Light UAS operator Certificate (LUC). It is voluntary. With it, an operator can fly standard scenarios without filing a declaration, self-authorise PDRA operations, and even self-authorise new operations using its own SORA. EASA notes that a LUC "is valid in all EU Member States, without additional demonstrations" (same source).

Three worked cases

Mission	Likely route	Why
Pipeline survey, 1.5 km out, farmland, 8 kg C6 drone, one observer along the route	STS-02	Sparsely populated, under 2 km with an observer, C6 mark
Same survey, 6 km out, no observers	SORA	Beyond the STS-02 range
Mapping a rural strip that crosses a control zone, 12 kg drone without a class mark	PDRA-01 or SORA	Controlled airspace over a sparsely populated area; PDRA-01 if its conditions fit

Our reading of EASA's summary. The questionnaire above runs the same three questions: how populated the area is, which drone you fly and how far it goes.

Software implications

STS-02 and SORA mitigations often depend on software: geofencing that keeps the drone inside the operational volume, contingency and emergency procedures that trigger automatically, a flight-termination function, and logs that show what the aircraft did. When you choose an autopilot stack and ground control software, check that each of these features exists, can be configured to the limits in your declaration or authorisation, and produces records you can show your authority. The autopilot comparison covers the licence side of that choice.

What this page does not settle

Each Member State's authority receives declarations and issues authorisations, and fees, forms and processing times differ by country. The status of PDRA-02 and later assessments in EASA's latest documents is an open point on the sources page.