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Even at the early stages of this new era of urban air mobility, there is already a scramble amongst well-known aerospace giants, as well as start-ups, to develop and evaluate the civil VTOL market. And this all starts with air-taxi concepts.

Astro Aerospace Ltd. of Dallas, Texas has been been granted a Special Flight Operations Certificate for the operation of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) system for its passenger drone project, “Elroy.”

The design of VTOL aircraft involves infinitely more problems than does the conventional airplane. Although experience with conventional subsonic craft provides some criteria, the VTOL characteristics require new concepts to determine configuration, payload, range, capability, and reliability. ...Although experience with conventional subsonic craft provides some criteria, the VTOL characteristics require new concepts to determine configuration, payload, range, capability, and reliability.

The turbulent impinging jet flows associated with vertical or short take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft hovering in ground effect can have a critical effect on aircraft performance, and they are modeled very poorly by existing models. ...Three flow phenomena representative of VTOL ground effects flows, the upwash fountain, the ground vortex, and the impingement zone of a round jet, are considered.

Urban air mobility (UAM) is a fast-growing industry that utilizes electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) technologies to operate in densely populated urban areas with limited space. However, atmospheric icing serves as a limitation to its operational envelope as in-flight icing can happen all year round anywhere around the globe. Since icing in smaller aviation systems is still an emerging topic, there is a necessity to study icing of eVTOL rotors specifically. Two rotor geometries were chosen for this study. A small 15-inch rotor was selected to illustrate a multirotor UAV drone, while a large 80-inch rotor was chosen to represent a UAM passenger aircraft. The ice accretion experiments were conducted in an icing wind tunnel on the small 15-inch rotor. The icing simulations were performed using FENSAP-ICE. The ice accretion simulations of the 15-inch rotor sections at –5 °C show a large, rather streamlined ice shape instead of the expected glaze ice characteristics.

Urban air mobility (UAM) refers to urban transportation systems that move people by air. UAM offers the potential for reducing traffic congestion in cities and providing an integrated approach to urban mobility. With the emergence of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, drone technology, and the possibility of automated aircraft, interest in this topic has grown considerably for private sector solution providers—including aerospace and technology companies—as well as urban planners and transportation professionals. Unsettled Issues Concerning Urban Air Mobility Infrastructure discusses the infrastructure requirements to effectively integrate UAM services into the overarching urban transportation system to enable multimodal trips and complete origin to destination travel. Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

Recent advancements of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have generated significant interest within and beyond the traditional aviation industry. One promising application for these innovative systems is in firefighting support during urban, rural, and wildland firefighting operations. Future eVTOL firefighting capabilities could include early detection and suppression, civilian rescue, and on-demand aerial deployment and extraction of firefighters.

Recent advancements of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have generated significant interest within and beyond the traditional aviation industry, and many new and novel applications have been identified and under development. The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted the challenges of managing a global pandemic response due to the difference in regional and local resources, culture, and political systems. Although there may not be a uniform crisis management strategy that the world can agree on, we can leverage a new generation of vertical flight vehicles to make a difference if (or when) such a global epidemic strikes again. One of the key challenges realized in the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak is the ability to allocate and distribute limited and critical medical resources, including equipment, supplies, medical personnel, and first responders to the hot spots when and where they may be needed.

Recent advancements of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have generated significant interest within and beyond the traditional aviation industry, and many new and novel applications have been identified and are under development. One promising application is rapid response during natural disasters, which can complement current capabilities to help save lives and enhance post-disaster recoveries. The Use of eVTOL Aircraft During Natural Disasters presents issues that need to be addressed before eVTOL aircraft are integrated into natural disaster response operations: eVTOL vehicle development Detect-and-avoid capabilities in complex and challenging operating environments Autonomous and remote operations Charging system compatibility and availability Operator and controller training Dynamic air space management Vehicle/fleet logistics and support Acceptance from stakeholders and the public Click here to access the full SAE EDGETM Research Report portfolio.

Experiments were performed to simulate jet plume effects associated with VTOL aircraft in takeoff and cruise modes. A water facility was used to investigate the influence of inclination angle and separation distance on the three-dimensional fountain flowfield generated by two impinging jets operating at a jet Reynolds number of 250,000.

It is designed to investigate a VTOL capability combined with a high supersonic level flight speed. To date, two models of this aircraft have been designed and built.

Routine all-weather operation of VTOL aircraft in the terminal area environment is not possible at the present time because of the lack of knowledge required for satisfactory operation of this type of aircraft under IFR conditions. ...Specifically, many operating problems have been encountered during operation of VTOL aircraft in transition flight at low speed on an approach guidance system. This paper briefly summarizes these problems and then discusses related results that have been obtained from several flight research investigations.

This paper answers the question: Will the Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) commercial aircraft be a competitor or an assistant to conventional aircraft? VTOL of the type being studied by the Lockheed-California Co. are designed to compete with conventional commercial aircraft in short range operations. ...Northeast Corridor show that a fully developed VTOL system will assist the airlines by turning short haul operations from a losing to a profitable operation and by offering the passenger better service.

Piloted, moving-base simulations have been performed in the evaluation of several VTOL control system concepts during landings on a destroyer in adverse weather conditions. All the systems incorporated attitude control augmentation; most systems incorporated various types of translational control augmentation implemented either through aircraft attitude or, more directly, through the propulsion system (thrust magnitude and deflection).

The inability of available situation displays to provide a decelerating instrument approach capability to a hover led to a flight research program in which control-command information was displayed for three degrees of freedom. The test aircraft (NASA's CH-46C in-flight simulator) was stabilized with high-gain attitude command system. Using this system, the pilot was able to decelerate the aircraft to a hover while simultaneously following a 6 deg glidepath. Although these tests demonstrate the potential of this concept, a number of factors, including adequate integration of command and situation information, were identified as affecting pilot acceptance of the system.

Viable improvements must be undertaken without further delay. VTOL's, such as the S-65-200 compound aircraft, offer numerous advantages. They have minimal requirements for real estate, are compatible with the city-center ports needed for an effective short haul system, and are economically attractive, based on conservative calculations of costs and revenues, as the facts and figures in this paper show.

The future acceptance and expansion of the VTOL, especially in its newer configurations, lies in its meeting the economics of the user. The commercial operator is especially influenced by these considerations.

A new flight control concept for a hovering VTOL aircraft has been developed. The main feature of this system is that deflection of a pilot's controller produces a linear velocity command with position hold when the controller is centered. ...This system has been evaluated in two piloted simulations of landing a VTOL aircraft on a small ship. The pilots consistently rated this system better than three other, more conventional, control systems.