The airport has areas such as passenger lounges, cafes, pop-up shops, cargo logistics centers, electric and hydrogen-powered hangars, security, command and control centers, and the first aircraft to take off and land are police drones and heavy cargo drones used to fight crime
Wen | special contributor to Caijing Wei Cheng from London
Editor| Haozhou
The world's first drone airport was recently opened in Coventry, UK.
The airport is called Air-One, and the public can visit the airport in the coming month to watch demonstration flights of future vehicles such as air taxis and delivery drones.
The starting gun of the "New Traffic Age"
The airport was developed by Coventry, England-based developer Urban-Air Port (UAP), which said it had received funding from the British government and support from Supernal, a subsidiary of South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group, to develop the "downtown airport," and now the drone airport is officially opened as the first shot in the "new transportation era" race.
UAP said Air-One is "the world's first airport to fully operate air taxis and autonomous cargo drones."
Air taxi belongs to the electric vertical take-off and landing vehicle (that is, eVTOL aircraft) is a kind of, China calls the eVTOL aircraft as the air car, mainly used for urban air traffic, is currently a popular investment area, into which the giants are Boeing, Airbus, Bell, Rolls-Royce, Daimler, Toyota, Geely, Hyundai and so on.
UAP is a company that designs and develops airports for the take-off and landing of airborne vehicles. The BRITISH developer said Air-One, close to Downtown Coventry, will demonstrate "how advanced air mobility can reduce congestion and air pollution on the city ground and support a zero-carbon future".
In order to ensure the safety of traditional aircraft take-off and landing, usually the airport will be built far away from the city, in addition to the aircraft landing needs a relatively long runway, so the choice is also to avoid the noise of aircraft take-off and landing to cause trouble to residents. Even smaller conventional helicopters can make a lot of noise from take-off and landing.
But the use of Aircraft at Coventry Drone Airport avoids these problems: reducing the congestion on the ground in the city, which is easy to understand because the vehicles used at the airport are flying in the air; reducing air pollution because these aircraft are not like traditional aircraft, which are not fuel-driven and are all electric; and located in the city center because they are vertical lifts, do not require long runways, and do not disturb the noise.
The UAP said that while air taxis have not yet received government approval, models the same size as the air taxis under construction will be shown to the public on the ground at the airport.
From design to manufacturing to operation today, UAP took only 15 months to build this 1,700-square-meter drone airport, of which it took only 11 weeks to build the airport. The airport has areas such as passenger lounges, cafes, pop-up shops, cargo logistics centers, electric and hydrogen-powered hangars, security, command and control centers, and the first aircraft to take off and land are police drones and heavy cargo drones used to fight crime.
The world's first drone airport not only has a variety of functions, but more importantly, its modular architecture allows it to be quickly deployed, built and better adapted to different environments anywhere in the world.
Ricky Sandhu, founder and executive chairman of UAP, said the drone airport facility would stay in Coventry for at least a month for public visits before being rolled out globally as a prototype.
UAP intends to develop more than 200 similar vertical take-off and landing drone airports worldwide over the next five years, already in the planned countries and regions, including the rest of the UK (Midwest England and London), the United States (Los Angeles), Australia, South Korea, France, Germany, Scandinavia and Southeast Asia.
For example, in October 2021, the International Business Department of Munich Airport in Germany also signed an agreement with UAP to cooperate in the construction of drone airports, intending to transplant UAP's drone airport model to Germany later this year.
Ralph Gafar, Managing Director of Munich Airport, said: "We see great potential for this new, versatile mode of transport. Partnering with UAP allows us to work together to design, implement and operate scalable, sustainable vertical airports around the world. ”
UAP built its first drone airport in Coventry, UK, for two reasons: first, Coventry has historically been a leader in the automotive and aerospace industries; second, Coventry is located in the heart of the UK, just four hours' drive from most parts of the UK.
The drone airport uses hydrogen fuel cells to power the airport, which can not only reduce air pollution, but also charge electric vehicles on the ground, not only to cooperate with other modes of transportation, but also to achieve a seamless connection with zero emissions.
Rapidly growing AAM market
Coventry Drone Airport is said to unleash the potential of the AAM market.
AAM, whose full English name is Advanced Air Mobility, translates Chinese as "advanced air mobility," includes a range of innovative aviation technologies such as small drones, electric aircraft, autonomous air traffic management, and more that are changing the role the aviation industry plays in people's daily lives, including the movement of goods and people.
Research shows that in the next 20 years, the AAM market represented by aerial vehicles and drones will grow at a rate of 9% per year.
AAM's vision is to help emerging aviation markets safely develop an air transport system that uses disruptive new aircraft to carry out cargo or shipping services in areas where air services were previously available or where air services were inadequate.
UAM, or Urban Air Mobility, stands for urban air mobility, representing one of AAM's most complex and exciting concepts, which include the provision of highly automated commercial service aircraft to the public in densely populated cities. This concept has aroused great interest and huge industry investment in the industry.
UAM envisions a future in which practical, cost-effective air travel becomes an integrated mode of transport in metropolitan areas through the adoption of advanced technologies and new operating procedures. For this reason, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) made UAM the initial target of the AAM program.
However, NASA also noted that although the AAM market has boomed over the years and a large number of air vehicles have also entered commercial operations in these years, the lack of ground infrastructure remains one of the biggest obstacles to the growth of the AAM market.
As the saying goes, there are a large number of drones in the air, but there is a lack of airports that can take off and land safely without disturbing people.
Now, Sandu excitedly declares, "Cars need roads. Trains require railroad tracks. The airport is required for the plane. Now, AirMobil also has the world's first urban airport! ”
There are very few infrastructure startups
In order to realize the upgrading of transportation from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, Toyota, Hyundai, Airbus, Boeing, Geely, Uber and other companies are developing air cars, hoping to help passengers realize the dream of "flying" through the sky. Global air car manufacturers are scrambling to bring their products to market in the coming years, with dozens of aerial car designs from Companies like Universal Aerospace, Volocopter GmbH, Joby Aviation and others, but very few infrastructure startups, with two major competitors being British companies, one UAP and one skyports.
UAP, founded by British-Indian entrepreneur Ricky Sandu, recently received £20 million in investment from two new shareholders: Canada-based aviation services company Dymond Group and a European real estate fund M7.
South Korea's Hyundai Motor Group also invested in UAP earlier in 2022 and became its minority shareholder.
Supernal, a subsidiary of hyundai Motor Group, was established in November 2021 as a partner of UAP. Supernal declares that its mission is to provide affordable advanced air traffic for all.
As part of its mission, Supernal is developing a range of electric vehicles and plans to launch the first commercial flight of its aerial vehicle in 2028.
Jaiwon Shin, CEO of Supernal, said at the time: "Mobility is constantly adding new dimensions, and our mission is to strive to change the way people travel, how they connect and how they live. We have bold ambitions at Supernal, but being the first to enter the market is not one of them. We are working hard to create the right products and the right integrated markets, and we will leverage the Hyundai Motor Group's manufacturing expertise at scale to ensure that AAM reaches the right price point and is used by the public. ”
In 2020, UAP began working with Supernal on the Coventry Air-One Airport construction project, and the two companies have joined forces to support future AAM operations related to airport infrastructure.
When air-one airport opened at the end of April 2022, Supernal chief commercial officer Mike Whitaker said the airport showed how air cars can easily integrate with existing transportation systems to meet local demand. On the day of the airport's opening, Supernal also showed the public its original concept aircraft S-A1 in the airport's aircraft hangar and demonstrated its drone take-off and landing process live.
As a few airport developers chased by many air car manufacturers, Sandu is full of confidence in the future. He said in a recent interview that UAP's first round of funding, which initially aimed at £10 million, has doubled because there are fewer and fewer companies working on drone airport development and investor interest in the sector.
UAP's round of funding has been going on for a year and is scheduled to end in June this year.
Sandu said his company is currently working on 65 drone airport construction projects worldwide, 13 of which have already had £50 million letters of intent and £15 million worth of pre-orders.
Sandu confidently says that the first cargo drone will take off from Coventry's drone airport in late April 2022, and that air taxis transporting passengers will also use Coventry's "city centre airport" from 2025.
It doesn't take long for the "cowboy" in the City of London office building to "fly" and go on a date with Coventry's "Weaver Girl".
(The author has worked as a senior journalist and editor in many well-known media outlets in the United Kingdom.) Author WeChat public number: Weicheng to see the world)
