Sky Revolution - Air Taxis And Urban Air Mobility
Wrapping Arms Around Flying Cars, Property Rights And A Black Eyed Pea
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The future is on the way, more than 18,000 mobility aircraft are on order, and this exceeds the order backlog for commercial planes. How can we get competing myopic interests to support the building of the infrastructure that’s required to help them scale?
Jetsons Flying Car
Will.i.am has joined the ranks of flying car enthusiasts by investing in Jetson, a startup with ambitious plans to roll out its electric aerial vehicles by 2024. The venture has secured $15 million in seed funding. Welcome @will.i.am to the newsletter.
Jetson reports that it has already sold over 300 units of its Jetson One, electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing (eVTOL) vehicles at a price of $98,000 per vehicle. In addition to investing, Will.i.am intends to undergo pilot training to become one of Jetson's initial pilots. The company which currently operates from a private airfield, with the owners’ permission in the south of Florence, has expansion aspirations in the United States.
Will.i.am has a track record of collaborating with companies like Mercedes-Benz and DeLorean to design and manufacture custom cars featuring futuristic elements. The ‘Jetson One EAV’ falls into the ultralight category, which doesn't require a pilot's license for operation but does have certain speed limitations, capping at 63 mph. The Jetson One is equipped with eight motors, a lidar sensor-based auto-landing system, and hands-free hovering capability and is operated by a joystick.
The company's mission is to redefine air mobility and transportation, aiming to offer innovative travel solutions that can enhance urban living. They are gearing up for the first U.S. test flights later this month. The FAA may outline new training standards for a vehicle like The Jetson One, and the requirement of permission to fly in airspace is essential.
Air Taxi & The Department of Defence
Joby Aviation, an electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing (eVTOL) company has expanded its flight testing program, marking another step towards commercial operations. The company's pre-production prototype aircraft now includes a pilot on board, with four members of Joby's flight test team conducting initial tests involving free thrust-borne hovers and forward transitions to semi-thrust-borne flight.
They have primarily conducted flight testing remotely from a ground control station, allowing for extensive data collection, the addition of a pilot onboard is a significant development. This pilot-led campaign is focused on evaluating the aircraft's handling characteristics and pilot control interfaces. This data will support the aircraft's development and contribute to its certification process with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
During the testing phase pilots assessed various tasks and manoeuvres that are required during standard operations, including vertical takeoffs, acceleration to forward flight, runway centerline tracking, and vertical landings on representative landing pads. The results will aid in the certification process and Joby's collaboration with the Department of Defense.
Joby recently announced the location of its first scaled aircraft manufacturing facility in Dayton, Ohio, aiming to produce up to 500 aircraft annually.
Locations & Infrastructure
As the commencement of air taxi services in the United States aims for a 2025 launch, the FAA has issued its first conditional approval for a vertiport (eVTOL heliport) an essential step in developing advanced air mobility (AAM) operations.
Provisional authorisation has been granted to Virginia's Allen C. Perkinson Blackstone Army Airfield (KBKT), a dual-purpose military and civilian facility. Pending clearance by the state's Department of Aviation, KBKT will serve as a research hub for testing an end-to-end concept of AAM transport operations.
This represents the initial phase of preparations to establish and evaluate the infrastructure required for air taxis' planned launch. The FAA's conditional approval to begin testing at KBKT marks the start of what is expected to be a significantly increased ground activity over time.
Enabling KBKT to be used as a vertiport for next-generation electric aircraft is primarily led by the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corporation (VIPC), NAVOS Air and aerial navigation services company and various university research and state development agencies.
KBKT's vertiport will initially utilize smaller Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) / drones, to simulate air taxis and other AAM aircraft while the facility is under development and its technology is tested and refined.
The FAA's vertiport design guidelines were released last year and have helped guide the Virgina development. This will allow the project to get FAA approval for developing the vertiport as a sandbox.
The significance of adapting existing infrastructure for new research applications will accelerate AAM operations and contribute to the development of air traffic management (ATM) systems and facilities. Existing facilities will not be enough to scale the industry and retrofitting can be more costly than newly built and better-located facilities.
Global Expansion
The Global Urban & Advanced Air Summit in Singapore recently saw international air safety regulators addressing the burgeoning advanced air mobility (AAM) sector. While expressing support for AAM technologies, regulators underlined the need for robust regulatory foundations through industry collaboration.
It comes as little surprise that the regulators promote regulation. In none of the talks or literature (although I am open to correction) did I see anyone promoting removing deficient or obsolete rules and regulations that would speed up the industry to deliver on the promise of new jobs and economic growth.
The Chair of the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) emphasized the importance of creating a safety-focused ecosystem backed by industry leaders, elected officials, and financial support to advance AAM. The UK Future Flight program was introduced which is a $365 million initiative aimed at ensuring regulatory preparedness, aircraft innovation, and commercialization.
Scaled Operational Challenges
What happens when we need to scale air taxis and drones was a central topic. The regulators see the challenge of mitigating congestion and visual pollution in low-altitude airspace as AAM expands over cities. The need for coordinated of low-altitude airspace use is based on who owns the airspace, grants its use and how that is managed.
Efforts are underway to align standards among international bodies like the FAA, EASA, ANAC, and Transport Canada Civil Aviation. Total harmonisation will not be unattainable, so the focus on interoperability between operating systems and environments is an important area of development. For example, low-altitude air traffic management, air rights ownership, and eVTOL operating systems.
It must be noted these systems that will power the industry are private market solutions and not government-mandated ones that could be used to stifle decentralized innovation and infrastructure.
Property
In the majority of the countries represented at the event, property law is well established and in the common law jurisdictions, the air rights holders are central to any scaled operation. Property is required to build vertiports and there are not enough existing airports and heliports in the right locations to be retrofitted to scale the industry.
There are some voices who want governments and government bodies to take over people’s property, namely their air rights. However in the US, the UK and many other jurisdictions outside of academic papers and dictatorships thankfully this strategy is not favoured.
Property ownership is sacrosanct in common-law countries, but we need to keep a watching brief, we don’t want to have our rights taken away by a thousand cuts as we won’t get them back.
The Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) sector and Urban Air Mobility (UAM) are rapidly evolving, requiring cooperation among not only regulators but also air rights holders and industry players to ensure safe and efficient urban air mobility. SkyTrades is helping solve some of the problems to enable low-altitude transit to flourish and property owners to gain passive income.