###### Abstract
During transport from the rearing facility to the release site and during actual release in the field, damage to male mosquitoes should be minimized to preserve their reproductive competitiveness. The short flight range of male Aedes aegypti requires elaborate release strategies, such as release via drones. The authors conducted shipping in a'real-life' setting to determine a good storage temperature and a compaction rate for the survival of the mosquitoes. In [9], optimized chilling conditions for handling male adults of _Aedes albopictus_ prior to release were analyzed. The authors claimed that further studies are required to develop drone release systems specific for chilled mosquitoes to improve release efficiency, as well as to compare the population suppression efficiency between release of postchilled and nonchilled males in the field. In any case, the weight of the payload for the UAS was not high and some low-cost solutions [10; 11] could be applied. The sterile insect technique is also used to control the codling moth pests and the authors of [12] evaluated the use of small uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) for the release of sterile codling moths. Sterile codling moths released from higher altitudes were more widely distributed and drifted more in strong winds, compared to those released from lower altitudes. Most of the released insects were recaptured in a 50 m wide swath under the release route. Recapture rates for aerially released insects were 40-70% higher compared to those released from the ground. The authors claimed that drones provide a promising alternative to ground release and conventional aircraft for the release of sterile codling moths. For the same pest, in [13] the authors compared the recapture rate of sterile moths following their release by four methods, and the efficiency of each system. The methods were the following: a fixed-wing unmanned plane flying \(\sim\)40-45 m high at 70 km/h, an unmanned hexacopter travelling 20 m high at 25 km/h, and manually from the ground via bicycles or motor vehicles. The highest recapture rate followed delivery by hexacopter, then bicycle, vehicle, and plane, whereas the methods in ascending order of time per hectare for delivery were the following: plane and vehicle, hexacopter, then bicycle. From an analysis of the state of the art, drone technology is mature enough from a technical point of view to perform the SIT application. However, the use of drones for the release of sterile insects is affected by the new regulation that has been approved at the European level [14] and came into force in January 2021. Then, the main contribution and novelty of this paper with respect to previous work is the risk analysis needed to put this application in practice with drones in rural and urban areas under the European drone regulation. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) is responsible for implementing, maintaining and monitoring compliance with newly established rules. Historically, each European Union (EU) member state maintained its own drone regulation at national level. Recently, a new EU regulation was approved that affects all member states equally. This new regulation was developed in the spirit of harmonizing rules and promoting the growth of the drone sector. The European regulation applies to any drone regardless of its mass and use. Drone operations are classified according to risk and are broken down into three operational categories. Table 1 shows this categorization. In addition to this, EASA has published the acceptable means of compliance (AMC) and guidance material (GM) [15], which complement the regulation and explains in detail the different categories set out above. The document entitled Specific Operations Risk Assessment (SORA) details the methodology for assessing the risk of drone operations. In this regard, several papers about risk analysis and SORA can be found in the literature.