London,
March 22, 2022 – Eve UAM, LLC (“Eve”), an Embraer S.A. (“Embraer”)
company, has announced the completion of the Concept of Operations
(CONOPS) for airspace integration of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) in the UK.
Led by Eve, the UK Air Mobility Consortium consists of global companies
with expertise that span the aviation industry, including NATS,
Heathrow Airport, London City Airport, Skyports, Atech, Volocopter, and
Vertical Aerospace, and developed the project in partnership with the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Innovation Hub through its Regulatory Sandbox.
The
CAA’s Regulatory Sandbox offers organizations or consortia the
opportunity to test and trial the viability of their innovative
solutions, while also helping the regulator shape future regulations in
line with their novel technologies and concepts. In January 2021, our
consortium was selected by the CAA to join the Sandbox on its Future Air
Mobility Challenge to develop a strategic framework that will define
the low-level airspace designs, procedures, and infrastructure for
safely integrating new types of UAM operations across the UK.
The
first major milestone from the project was the compilation of a
baseline describing key regulatory challenges which need to be addressed
to enable safe, efficient, and scalable zero-emission UAM operations,
resulting in the Civil Aviation Publication 2272. The consortium used
this baseline to identify which areas to focus on in order to ensure the
proposed concepts consider the criteria previously aligned with the
regulator.
The
CONOPS was developed as a London-centric case study, transporting
passengers within a network of vertiports from Heathrow Airport (LHR) to
London City Airport (LCY). The consortium followed a rigorous process
to develop the concepts, including interactive reviews from the CAA
Innovation Hub and a comprehensive range of its subject matter experts,
incorporating their feedback into the final document. It also leveraged
quantitative data derived from computer modelling simulations to support
its proposed concepts, as well as a series of stakeholder engagement
activities to better understand stakeholder concerns and needs related
to UAM operations.
Frederic
Laugere, UK CAA Innovation Services Lead, said: “The infrastructure
required to support the future implementation of Urban Air Mobility
(UAM) will be significant and a key element for the success of this new
sector. The significant detail in this report and its real-world
scenario means it paves the way to make UAM a reality.”
“This
CONOPS focuses primarily on the solutions necessary for near-term
challenges that could impact initial commercial operations. The London
use case and CONOPS provide a tangible example for the CAA to better
understand the aims of UAM and support the development of future
regulations accordingly. Our work also indicates how thriving the market
for eVTOL flights in the UK will be in the future,” said Andre Stein,
co-CEO of Eve.
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