A Transportation Revolution: Low-Altitude Air Mobility
Integrating Our Airspace, Challenges and Solutions
Thank you to everyone for reading and for your input, it is very much appreciated. Please enjoy this week’s newsletter. Feel free to reach out to me with any thoughts or introductions to people in this space. Thanks, jonathan@skytrades.io SkyTrades
Revolutionary disruptive change is rarely a top-down event, it’s ground swell, often by individuals on the outside of the system or a few on the inside who can see what’s broken and want it fixed.
Road Transportation
It is vital to consider traditional road and aviation transportation systems to ensure an accessible and useful system for low-altitude air mobility, and to make sure we’re not slowed down in our growth ambitions by misaligned incentives.
When driving from one city to another, we don't need to buy a specific license to access the road network, although in the US 230 million people have a drivers’ licence. We have the freedom to drive on approved public roads as we see fit, adhering to the rules of the road, and paying tolls and taxes as we go. In the US over 38 States use some form of tolling. This access to public roads makes it easier for transportation companies to offer their services and allows consumers to enjoy a diverse range of transit and delivery options.
We drive on approved roads so we don’t get accused of trespassing over land we don’t own or have permission to use. We park our vehicles in private car lots where we pay for the comfort of knowing that we won’t be fined for illegal parking on public roadways or accused of trespassing by parking in someone’s carport.
Opening Airspace
Embracing the concept of open low-altitude airspace for urban air mobility is vital for its success. In assessing this new market it’s important to remember how wrong we can be, the past can be a poor guide for the future. Anyone who thinks this will be a small market or comparable to the existing aviation markets should take note of Bill Gurleys famous How to Miss By a Mile blog post.
“In 1980, McKinsey & Company was commissioned by AT&T (whose Bell Labs had invented cellular telephony) to forecast cell phone penetration in the U.S. by 2000. The consultant’s prediction, 900,000 subscribers, was less than 1% of the actual figure, 109 Million. Based on this legendary mistake, AT&T decided there was not much future to these toys. A decade later, to rejoin the cellular market, AT&T had to acquire McCaw Cellular for $12.6 Billion. By 2011, the number of subscribers worldwide had surpassed 5 Billion (15 Billion today) and cellular communication had become an unprecedented technological revolution.”
Allowing multiple operators to provide services in the same airspace ensures competition, fostering innovation and improvements in service quality. It prevents a single company from dominating a specific route and charging crazy prices and it protects the interests of consumers and fosters a healthy market. Due to the fact that individual landowners own the air space parcels above their land this decentralised distribution allows market forces to ease potential friction.
Aviation Victor Routes
In traditional aviation maintaining order and safety is often done through establishing Victor routes or fixed corridors for altitudes over 1,200 feet. These corridors have been used and are essentially predetermined paths in the sky at set altitudes. They serve as guidelines for aircraft to navigate through congested areas or for long-distance travel over open airspace. European countries and Atlantic regions have effectively employed this strategy, ensuring efficient and organised air traffic flow.
While concerns about congestion in the urban sky when it comes to drones are valid, it is essential to recognise the vastness of the airspace available. Even with the potential increase in flights due to urban air mobility, the sky remains remarkably underutilised as a resource. In comparison, commercial airliners, which are already in operation, often fly at altitudes where other aircraft are not even visible.
Low altitudes below 1,200 feet for on-demand drone and air taxi journeys will have a higher frequency than traditional aircraft. The routes they take will depend on who uses them. In the US revenue from food delivery is expected to reach $470Bn in the next 4 years, this market is ripe for drone delivery. Victor-type routes will not work for this sector of the delivery market due to the variable drop-off locations at peoples’ homes and the fact drones must fly below 500 feet based on Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) rules.
Addressing Low-Altitude Congestion and Demand
These challenges can be managed through effective pricing for drone transit by the air rights owners managed through the SkyTrades air rights marketplace. Food delivery platforms alone do over 700 million deliveries in the US per year. By applying variable fees during peak hours or busy (legal) routes, operators and consumers can be incentivised to consider alternative times or paths to reduce congestion if necessary. Regulating demand through reservation systems, variable altitude designations and flexible schedules can ensure a more balanced distribution of flights. For example, getting your meal is time sensitive, but getting a pair of shoes for a wedding next Saturday is less so.
$142 Million Government Contract to Develop Flying Cars
Archer Aviation, a California-based eVTOL aircraft company, secured a $142 million contract from the U.S. Air Force to develop a military version of its "air taxi" named Midnight. The deal includes up to six Midnight eVTOL aircraft, pilot training, maintenance, and data-sharing for logistics and rescue operations.
This collaboration with the U.S. Air Force is part of the USAF AFWERX Agility Prime program, exploring eVTOL integration into military platforms. Archer aims for FAA certification in 2024, planning commercial service the following year. The Midnight eVTOL is projected to be 1,000 times quieter than a helicopter.
This is a significant advancement highlighting the growing importance of eVTOL technology in both transportation and military operations. As the sector progresses and with government support, the widespread commercial deployment of eVTOLs becomes increasingly promising.
Mail By Drone in Scotland
Skyports Drone Services has partnered with Speedbird Aero, a leading Brazilian drone manufacturer, for the Orkney I-Port drone delivery initiative. The project, in collaboration with Royal Mail, Orkney Islands Council Harbour Authority, and Loganair, aims to establish a seamless delivery service overcoming Orkney's challenging weather and geography.
Speedbird Aero's DLV-2 electric multirotor drone, chosen for its ability to operate in harsh conditions, has a range of up to 16 KMs and a payload capacity of 6 kilograms. Royal Mail's inter-island delivery flights using the DLV-2 commenced in July and will continue until October. The flights adhere to existing regulations, allowing the possibility of extending the project beyond three months, benefiting from close take-off and landing locations and extended visual line-of-sight operations, while excluding private landowners' permission! Oversight or trampling on individual property rights?
European Drones
Europe has been considered as leading the way in the Western world, in the category of drones and their commercial adoption. To a degree this is true, however, never let it be said that the Europeans can’t regulate.
A recent European Parliamentary debate centred around the report on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) integration into European airspace (whose fragmented low-altitude ownership is undefined), and operations over populated areas. Clémence Routaboul Steer presented the report to the Parliament's Committee on Transport and Tourism in response to the European Commission's Drone 2.0 strategy, sparking a discussion among various political factions in the European Union about the emerging drone sector.
Some of the key issues raised were parliamentary involvement in drone rule-making, safety and privacy concerns with drone deployment, lack of harmonisation in the drone sector, data collection and cybersecurity challenges, and urban drone flight authorisation and regulation.
Marian-Jean Marinescu emphasized the need for more active involvement of European Parliament representatives in rule-making for the drone sector, suggesting a formal request to the European Commission for sector-specific regulations due to insufficient parliamentary engagement in delegated and implementing acts. Elena Kountoura expressed concern about deploying drones in populated regions, citing risks to life, property, and citizens' privacy, recommending careful consideration by authorities before extensive commercial drone use, and prioritising medical services and remote area connectivity. Isabel García Muñoz highlighted the lack of harmonization between Member States in the emerging drone sector, urging the European Commission to develop a drone deployment roadmap. Karima Delli raised concerns about data collection, cybersecurity, and surveillance capabilities, emphasizing the need for stronger pilot regulations, increased penalties for misuse, and proper authorisation processes for urban drone flights.
Based on recent French air traffic control strikes (c.60!) in the last few months causing aircraft flying over the jurisdiction to divert, adding costs to consumers, the chances of harmonisation appear slim for a collective multilateral low-altitude air space agreement. It is better to continue to be controlled by the owners of the low-altitude air space, the landowners, and market forces, than an agglomeration of bureaucrats.
Stakeholders in general welcomed the Drone Strategy 2.0 and recommended 19 flagship actions, which were not prioritised, so will never get done. However, it was highlighted that some measures might be more challenging than anticipated, and attention should be given to social acceptance and ground risk assessments. The report also noted that the Drone 2.0 strategy lacked an industrialisation roadmap! No prioritisation and no roadmap, it all sounds like a slowdown to me.
Healthy Competition for Urban Air Mobility
It is crucial we adopt an airspace model that encourages healthy drone competition, diverse offerings, and consumer-centric services. Taking into account the owners of the air rights and not looking to override individual freedoms, we can have a system that delivers for all of us. By leveraging the lessons from traditional road transportation and aviation, but not copying it we can pave the way for safe, efficient, and accessible urban air mobility, and remove the elements that block and stifle progress.
It has to be remembered that aviation innovation has developed very slowly over the last 50 years, and understand why it has happened that way. We don’t want this to happen for low-altitude air mobility. See an example below of how misaligned incentives have slowed us down. If we are not careful the same well-meaning interests will deliver the same grindingly poor outcome for low-altitude air mobility.
If we had propagated the rate of growth in commercial transatlantic aircraft speeds that existed from 1939 to the mid-1970s, we would have Mach-4 airliners by now. But the overland ban (on supersonic flight) put an end to all that. It made small supersonic aircraft, which need to fly shorter overland routes, essentially illegal, closing off the iteration cycle that could drive progress in the industry. - Eli Dourado
Imagine an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) travelling at Mach-10. It could get your favourite slice of pizza from New York to LA or a vital organ from Boston to San Francisco in 12 minutes - what a world that would be.
To learn more about low-altitude air rights please contact me at jonathan@skytrades.io
