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First fully automated AAM flight test site set up at Augsburg Airport by Skyroads AG

Sky­roads AG has ini­ti­at­ed the first ful­ly auto­mat­ed Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty flight test site at Augs­burg Air­port in Ger­many, which will pro­vide a large-scale real-life lab­o­ra­to­ry for fur­ther indus­tri­al and aca­d­e­m­ic research and test­ing of AAM and asso­ci­at­ed inno­v­a­tive infra­struc­ture.

The test field pur­sues the goal of improv­ing com­mon data com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nolo­gies in avi­a­tion so that Sky­roads’ open, auto­mat­ed and inter­op­er­a­ble flight con­trol sys­tem can also be oper­at­ed safe­ly in met­ro­pol­i­tan regions. This project, co-fund­ed by the Free State of Bavaria, sets a pos­i­tive course for the future oper­a­tion of air­craft, espe­cial­ly in urban envi­ron­ments. 

Corvin Huber, CEO of Sky­roads, said: “The new test field is a mile­stone not only for us but for the entire field of Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty. We will only see drones for trans­port­ing pas­sen­gers and car­go in dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban areas if we cre­ate open, auto­mat­ed and inter­op­er­a­ble flight man­age­ment sys­tems for them. That’s what Augs­burg is all about.”

Sky­roads enables oper­a­tors of fleets, ground infra­struc­ture and ver­ti­ports, as well as air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers, to test their vehi­cles and infra­struc­tures at an ear­ly stage of devel­op­ment — while the Sky­roads sys­tem guar­an­tees the safe­ty of the test flights.

At the same time, the com­pa­ny pro­vides sup­port with the test flight appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dures, facil­i­tat­ing the respec­tive approval by the author­i­ties. The part­ners include Super­nal as the AAM divi­sion of the Kore­an Hyundai Group, Flix, the Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich with sev­er­al chairs, Hybrid-Air­plane Tech­nolo­giesFly­Now Avi­a­tionHoryznBlue­fliteAmazil­ia Aero­space and Man­ta Air­craft.

Max­i­m­il­ian Hartwig, Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of Augs­burg­er Flughafen GmbH, said: “The estab­lish­ment of Sky­roads at the avi­a­tion loca­tion Augs­burg marks the begin­ning of a new chap­ter of future mobil­i­ty in avi­a­tion. The Augs­burg Air­port site offers ide­al con­di­tions for imple­ment­ing such a flight test cen­tre as a real lab­o­ra­to­ry. We warm­ly wel­come our lat­est inno­va­tion part­ner, Sky­roads, at their new home base.

Dr. Wolf­gang Hüb­schle, head of the eco­nom­ics divi­sion of the city of Augs­burg, added: “Augs­burg is a his­tor­i­cal­ly estab­lished aero­space city. Com­pa­nies and insti­tutes such as MT Aero­space, Rock­et Fac­to­ry, Pre­mi­um AEROTEC, sup­pli­er com­pa­nies and the Ger­man Aero­space Cen­ter DLR are shap­ing this area today. When it comes to future forms of mobil­i­ty, includ­ing urban air mobil­i­ty, there is also a lot hap­pen­ing in Augs­burg.

“I am there­fore delight­ed that, in addi­tion to a devel­op­ment com­pa­ny for air taxis, Sky­roads has also now set­tled at Augs­burg Air­port. In addi­tion to the frame­work con­di­tions for a full scale lab­o­ra­to­ry, the com­pa­ny has excel­lent oppor­tu­ni­ties here for find­ing skilled tal­ent and there­fore can grow.

“This is achieved by an aero­space friend­ly envi­ron­ment, includ­ing uni­ver­si­ties, col­leges, the excel­lent acces­si­bil­i­ty and the pleas­ant work-life bal­ance that the Augs­burg region can offer, with cul­ture, sports and leisure activ­i­ties in the coun­try­side while still main­tain­ing a met­ro­pol­i­tan flair.”

Sky­roads is val­i­dat­ing and ver­i­fy­ing its sys­tem archi­tec­ture and ser­vice approach at Augs­burg Air­port. At the same time, the Munich-based start-up is cre­at­ing a safe­ty report and also sup­port­ing the devel­op­ment of future cer­ti­fi­ca­tion process­es by col­lect­ing and eval­u­at­ing oper­a­tional expe­ri­ence.

The Tech­ni­cal Uni­ver­si­ty of Munich is inves­ti­gat­ing the effects of inno­v­a­tive air traf­fic on the envi­ron­ment, espe­cial­ly with regard to vis­i­bil­i­ty and noise. The ulti­mate aim is to pro­vide local author­i­ties with a sim­u­la­tion tool that can be used to pre­dict the impact of future air traf­fic in order to sup­port informed deci­sion-mak­ing.

For Sky­roads and Augs­burg Air­port, the next step is to design and estab­lish an oper­at­ing agree­ment that reg­u­lates the oper­a­tion of test and demon­stra­tion flights with­out dis­rupt­ing con­ven­tion­al air traf­fic and the neigh­bour­hood of the air­port.

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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