NASA Personal Air Transportation Technologies 2006-01-2413

The ability to personalize air travel through the use of an on-demand, highly distributed air transportation system will provide the degree of freedom and control that Americans enjoy in other aspects of their life. This new capability, of traveling when, where, and how we want with greatly enhanced mobility, accessibility, and speed requires vehicle and airspace technologies to provide the equivalent of an internet PC ubiquity, to an air transportation system that now exists as a centralized hub and spoke mainframe NASA airspace related research in this new category of aviation has been conducted through the Small Aircraft Transportation (SATS) project, while the vehicle technology efforts have been conducted in the Personal Air Vehicle sector of the Vehicle Systems Program. The PAV sector technology research conducted over the past several years is described, including intelligent avionics for ease of use, integrated low noise propulsion, advanced internal combustion engines, low cost variable pitch ducted propellers, lean design structures, quality assurance based certification regulations, a laminar flow fuselage with integrated aero-propulsion, advanced vehicle concepts, and high density airspace simulations.