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Pierre-Alain Goujard, Flight Operations Lead at Helsing, will present ‘Testing as they fight: how to navigate European Drone test centres to deliver battlefield-grade capabilities’ at the Defence Testing Forum on 30 September 2026. His presentation will examine the challenges of flight-testing defence drones that must operate according to military requirements in war zones while remaining compliant with civilian regulation during development. Goujard argues that conventional regulatory pathways are not sufficient for this task, requiring instead a combination of suitable flight areas, effective links with military and civilian authorities, and patience. Goujard will also take part in the panel discussion ‘Integrating UAS & Counter-UAS into the Modern Battlespace: Interoperability, Open Architecture & Manned–Unmanned Teaming’, also on 30 September 2026. Ahead of the event, he discusses what genuine integration could look like, the barriers to interoperability, the evolution of counter-UAS systems, and why open architectures and software-defined capabilities will be critical to future defence operations.

EUROCAE, the standardisation organisation that develops globally recognised standards to support aviation safety, will have a strong presence at this year's Aerospace Test and Development (AT&D) Show. Bertrand Riveill, technical programme manager for innovative aerial services at EUROCAE, will take part in the panel discussion ‘Integrating UAS & Counter-UAS into the Modern Battlespace: Interoperability, Open Architecture & Manned–Unmanned Teaming’ alongside executives from Helsing, DeltaQuad and Vermeer in the Defence Testing Forum on 30 September 2026. He will also deliver a presentation, ‘How standards are supporting new types of aircraft,’ in the Testing Forum on the same day, explaining how industry standards complement the regulatory and certification framework, and how current work on VTOL, hydrogen and hybrid-electric propulsion is supporting emerging aviation technologies. Here, Riveill talks about how EUROCAE’s consensus standardisation process works, the latest progress across its key working groups, and the growing crossover between advanced air mobility and military applications.

Vaeridion will take to the Future Propulsion Forum on 29 September 2026 for the session ‘An Alternative to Distributed Propulsion: Vaeridion's Multi-Engine Single-Propeller Approach.’ The company's patented multi-engine, single-propeller electric propulsion system combines the redundancy of a twin-engine architecture with the operational safety of centreline thrust, while avoiding the complexity of gearboxes and/or contra-rotating propellers. The presentation will explore the design principles behind the architecture, the key trade-offs that shaped it, and the early steps taken to de-risk certification, as well as highlighting how the approach is uniquely aligned with the operational and performance requirements of the Vaeridion Microliner. Here, Douglas Costa, head of propulsion and systems at Vaeridion, talks about the thinking behind the architecture, the certification journey so far, and what's next for the technology.