The RAPID project will build upon strong preliminary research and a clear progression strategy to advance from Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 2 at the start of the project to TRL5 by month 36. The project plan focuses on validating a series of use cases of gradually escalating TRL, synchronised on a regular release schedule of sequential integration, validation, and field-testing events. The safety-based Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) validation approach introduces exposure to increasingly hazardous situations only once the necessary risk-mitigating autonomy has been validated pre-field. Using the 1-5 autonomy scale from the self-driving car industry as a conceptual lens on UAS autonomy, the objective is to progress from current VLOS cruise control flight to validation of adaptive collision avoidance in a swarm airfield test in Ireland. Then, temporary hands-off and fully autonomous BVLOS structural inspection survey flights in controlled Port environments will be tested at Hamburg Port. Unrestricted BVLOS fight is an objective for post-project TRL escalation.