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Visual line of sight (VLOS)VLOS

The pilot keeps continuous unaided visual contact with the drone — enough to judge its position and spot other traffic. The open category's default rule.

Visual line of sight (VLOS) means the remote pilot maintains continuous, unaided visual contact with the drone throughout the flight. Glasses or contact lenses are fine, but binoculars or a screen do not count — the view must be good enough to judge the drone's position and spot other air traffic in time.

VLOS is the default requirement of the whole open category: without it you may not fly in A1, A2 or A3. In practice it limits the flight distance — as soon as the drone becomes a dot whose orientation you can no longer tell, VLOS is lost.

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