Exclusive Q&A: Urban-Air Port’s Andrea Wu goes into further detail about company’s next-gen vertiport design

Fol­low­ing a fas­ci­nat­ing con­ver­sa­tion last month dur­ing one of our pod­casts, Andrea Wu, Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer at Urban-Air Port, told us more about the company’s eight hangar, ver­ti­cal­ly stacked ver­ti­port.

As part of an extend­ed inter­view with eVTOL Insights fol­low­ing the episode, Andrea elab­o­rat­ed more about the think­ing behind the design, how it can be inte­grat­ed into var­i­ous city land­scapes and also talks about the impor­tant issue of recharg­ing cycles when in oper­a­tion.

Q: You men­tioned UAP’s next-gen ver­ti­port ren­der­ing applied a lot of lessons learnt from Air One. Are you able to elab­o­rate on the think­ing behind adapt­ing this new design and talk through the main fea­tures, such as the ver­ti­cal air­field?

Andrea Wu: “Air One was a piv­otal mile­stone for us and for the indus­try. Air One’s main focus was to suc­cess­ful­ly deliv­er the World’s first ful­ly-oper­a­tional ver­ti­port deploy­ing Urban-Air Port’s pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy — the Ver­ti­cal Air­field, for both pas­sen­ger eVTOLs and car­go drones, but most impor­tant­ly, for peo­ple.

“We con­duct­ed 150 safe and suc­cess­ful car­go drone flights in a dense­ly pop­u­lat­ed urban envi­ron­ment; in a high­ly com­plex air­space where we built Air One’s ATZ inside Coven­try Airport’s ATZ adja­cent to Birm­ing­ham Inter­na­tion­al Airport’s ATZ — with full approval and coor­di­na­tion with UK’s CAA. This alone was a glob­al first.

“We also show­cased Supernal’s five-seater eVTOL air­craft, the S‑A1, in an inte­grat­ed hangar with all sup­port­ing MRO and charg­ing infra­struc­ture, includ­ing our off-grid green hydro­gen-pow­ered ener­gy sys­tem. We wel­comed 15,000 vis­i­tors includ­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the UK Gov­ern­ment, local and inter­na­tion­al city coun­cils, glob­al reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies, indus­try lead­ers, schools and uni­ver­si­ties, all gen­uine­ly excit­ed and inspired by our Ver­ti­port.

“This pre­sent­ed a real high­light for our team and has become an industry’s prece­dent for safe­ly deploy­ing inno­v­a­tive and inven­tive new ways to trans­form the future of flight and trav­el in our cities.

“One of the biggest strengths we pose is a mature, very expe­ri­enced and diverse Design & Deliv­ery team that share the same, vision­ary goal. Our team includes Gov­ern­ments, Coun­cils, Reg­u­la­to­ry bod­ies, OEMs, non-aero­nau­ti­cal rev­enue indus­try lead­ers, sus­tain­able ener­gy sys­tems spe­cial­ists, flight dynam­ics engi­neers, pilots, design­ers, engi­neers, archi­tects and a high-qual­i­ty con­struc­tion team, all with a proven and lead­ing track record.

“It took all of this and more to get Air One done, and we are excit­ed to con­tin­ue to attract the best tal­ent from across the World as we build on Air One’s suc­cess­es and insights hard earned from this pio­neer­ing under­tak­ing, which impor­tant­ly has not been repli­cat­ed since.

“Over the past 18 months we have tak­en all the sys­tems that made Air One Coven­try a glob­al­ly unprece­dent­ed event and have com­bined these with a clear check-list that has been care­ful­ly com­piled in line with reg­u­la­to­ry and plan­ning guid­ance on pas­sen­ger safe­ty and haz­ards like eVTOL down­wash & out­wash, noise pol­lu­tion, oper­a­tional effi­cien­cy incl. eVTOL through­put under the over­ar­ch­ing umbrel­la of ful­ly elec­tric air trans­porta­tion, its car­bon foot­print and green ener­gy tar­gets.”
 
Air­craft inter­ac­tions with the Ground

AW: “Our Next-Gen ver­ti­port design allows for the safest and most com­fort­able jour­ney for a pas­sen­ger to board the air­craft once it’s on-stand. Safe­ty haz­ards caused by the unique­ly chal­leng­ing down­wash and out­wash pro­files from the lead­ing eVTOL typology’s (fixed wing with tilt-rotors) are care­ful­ly and unique­ly man­aged by our Next-Gen as the eVTOL take­off and land­ing zone is between +7.5 to 15m above grade, essen­tial­ly cre­at­ing a con­tained and pro­tect­ed ground lev­el with air­craft activ­i­ties all hap­pen­ing in a con­trolled and safe ele­va­tion.“

Noise

AW: “The envi­ron­men­tal impact of noise pol­lu­tion in avi­a­tion is a key deci­sion fac­tor when it comes to per­mit­ting and plan­ning approval process­es, flight sched­ules and pub­lic accep­tance. We have built sev­er­al high­ly com­plex projects around the world, from High Speed Rail, Air­port Expan­sions, Metro exten­sions, even new road bridges in Swe­den — where the impact of noise and the per­cep­tion of this noise was always the biggest hur­dle.

“Where­as eVTOLs will be much qui­eter than con­ven­tion­al air­craft and heli­copters, noise pol­lu­tion will still present one of the biggest chal­lenges in both rur­al loca­tions where wildlife will be impact­ed and the per­cep­tion is greater and urban loca­tions where it will impact peo­ple in clos­er prox­im­i­ty. Tak­ing-off and land­ing at height will help mit­i­gate these per­ceived noise lev­els and will improve noise per­cep­tion.

“Urban-Air Port is work­ing hard with sci­en­tists and researchers to evi­dence this to the indus­try. Too lit­tle work has been under­tak­en on this top­ic, as it is a hard nut to crack, but we are sig­nif­i­cant­ly advanced in the under­stand­ing and mit­i­ga­tions required to sup­ple­ment the eVTOL noise-reduc­ing tech­nol­o­gy through our Next-Gen.  If it’s qui­eter to land at our Next-Gen, then more routes can be cre­at­ed and more flights can occur, and the indus­try starts to make gains.“

Capac­i­ty

AW: “To max­imise eVTOL through­put, allow for real­is­tic charg­ing times and symmetric/ asym­met­ric flight sched­ules, our pre- fab­ri­cat­ed hangars can be ver­ti­cal­ly stacked around the cen­tral­ly locat­ed Ver­ti­cal Air­field. The foot­print of our eight-hangar Next-Gen ver­ti­port is 80 per cent small­er than a con­ven­tion­al ground-based eight-stand ver­ti­port, which results in supe­ri­or effi­cien­cies in both CapEx and OpEx result­ing in more prof­itable oper­a­tions and bet­ter fares for pas­sen­gers. This will make AAM viable, acces­si­ble and more afford­able.

“In terms of com­mer­cial gain, we are intro­duc­ing sig­nif­i­cant real estate cost sav­ings by deploy­ing our tech­nol­o­gy. Real estate costs will ulti­mate­ly dri­ve the loca­tions so a small­er foot­print will be cru­cial to enable Ver­ti­port net­works. Sus­tain­abil­i­ty is built into our thought process and solu­tion, so it is vital that we don’t make the same mis­takes as the avi­a­tion indus­try has made in the past.

“Our cus­tomers, investors and part­ners see the ben­e­fits in pro­vid­ing a com­pact solu­tion that reduces the envi­ron­men­tal impact and sup­port us on our roadmap.”

Q: The ver­ti­port design is focused on scal­a­bil­i­ty and mod­u­lar­i­ty too. Are you able to share how it can be inte­grat­ed in var­i­ous city land­scapes?

AW: “In a mar­ket that faces a lot of uncer­tain­ty, while the main focus is the race to cer­ti­fi­ca­tion we have iden­ti­fied that the abil­i­ty to phase-in and scale-up oper­a­tions in line with a matur­ing mar­ket is key.

“Our Next-Gen infra­struc­ture allows an easy-entry-to-mar­ket for cus­tomers includ­ing air­ports, prop­er­ty devel­op­ers and OEMs. Our small­est ver­ti­port fea­tures the Ver­ti­cal Air­field flanked by two inte­grat­ed hangars (pro­tect­ed and cov­ered stands), the Medi­um ver­sion includes eight hangars that are dou­ble stacked. If a net­work has been test­ed and proven to be suc­cess­ful, our Next-Gen Large includes two Ver­ti­cal Air­fields offer­ing the equiv­a­lent of a ‘dual run­way’ sce­nario plus 18 hangars triple stacked. 

“Asym­met­ric flight sched­ules will require a large num­ber of hangar spaces for overnight stor­age, MRO and recal­i­bra­tion of sched­ules with demand, but it will take time for net­works and ver­ti­port loca­tions to expand. The key is to offer flex­i­bil­i­ty and the abil­i­ty to expand the exist­ing mod­el. That’s where our Next-Gen comes into its own. Imag­ine the great­est capac­i­ty on the small­est foot­print with safe­ty and secu­ri­ty for pilots, pas­sen­gers, pub­lic and the air­craft.“

Q: You men­tioned how UAP can max­imise the qual­i­ties and ben­e­fits of your Ver­ti­cal Air­field. Are you able to share more details behind your think­ing?

AW: “The Ver­ti­cal Air­field is the game-chang­er; the FAA like to refer to it as ‘an air­craft car­ri­er but onshore’. It is the key to enable com­mer­cial­ly viable oper­a­tions, pro­vide max­i­mum safe­ty and com­fort to pay­ing pas­sen­gers and allow this new green mode of trans­porta­tion to thrive.

“The trans­porta­tion sec­tor is under immense pres­sure to meet ambi­tious net zero tar­gets — in the UK by 2050 — and to ‘build back green­er’. The start­ing point is care­ful­ly-designed trans­port infra­struc­ture that fea­tures a small car­bon foot­print and is ener­gy effi­cient and to avoid mis­takes of mega projects like Air­port or High Speed rail cost over­runs. Urban-Air Port is only too aware of these risks as our team have been involved in some of the biggest and most icon­ic infra­struc­ture projects for over 40 years.

“We, there­fore, focus on a deliv­er­able, phased and instal­lable solu­tion that can work with com­plex­i­ties of cities and air­ports, but also work with bud­gets. One of the biggest costs in an air­port or heli­port is in the run­way, taxi­way stands — we reduce those costs by virtue of the Ver­ti­cal Air­field but also enhance the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence that goes hand in hand.“

Q: Can I also ask about the recharg­ing cycles as well, and how this will be incor­po­rat­ed into this new design? 

AW: “Our team has designed and deliv­ered some of the most icon­ic infra­struc­ture projects includ­ing Bei­jing, Hong Kong and Heathrow Air­ports, Slussen Mas­ter­plan and Bat­tersea Pow­er Sta­tion and Inno­v­a­tive Sta­dia like The Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur Stad­um and Wimbledon’s Court 1 Roof. All of these projects came with their own ener­gy chal­lenges, some had solu­tions that were ‘more green’ than oth­ers.

“To ensure that our ver­ti­port solu­tions help gov­ern­ments and the glob­al avi­a­tion indus­try meet net zero tar­gets our team is design­ing com­pact ener­gy stor­age sys­tems. These com­pact ‘Ener­gy 1’ stor­age units pro­vide the addi­tion­al pow­er that is required by eVTOL oper­a­tions but can­not be met by the nation­al grid.

“It will be com­pat­i­ble with a vari­ety of charg­ing com­po­nents in line with our agnos­tic ver­ti­ports. ‘Ener­gy 1’ stor­age units come as inte­grat­ed as well as stand-alone prod­ucts. More details of this Urban-Air Port tech will be unveiled soon!“

Q: The pub­lic reac­tion to Air One in Coven­try was incred­i­ble. What are you plan­ning to do with this par­tic­u­lar design, when it comes to show­ing more peo­ple what the future of trav­el might look like?

AW: “Air One Coven­try was such a suc­cess as it brought peo­ple from all back­grounds togeth­er around our fledg­ling indus­try and inspired the next gen­er­a­tion to engage in advanced air mobil­i­ty.

“We received a large num­ber of CVs from school and uni­ver­si­ty stu­dents ask­ing for advice on how to best enter this new indus­try and for jobs. Our Board of Advi­sor ‘Head of Plan­ning’, Sunil Bud­heo, who was instru­men­tal in secur­ing Coven­try City Council’s sup­port for Air One Coven­try includ­ing the ide­al­ly placed cen­tral site of West­min­ster Carpark, has shared the lessons learnt from an urban plan­ning per­spec­tive with oth­er Euro­pean author­i­ties and at glob­al indus­try events.

“Air One Coven­try presents the per­fect demonstrator/ Proof-of-Con­cept for advanced air mobil­i­ty and we look for­ward to help oth­er coun­tries to fol­low suit.  Air One also proved our Ver­ti­cal Air­field works and can be cer­ti­fied — so our Next-Gen is build­ing on these lessons. Hav­ing won the Award for Project of the Year on Safe­ty and Inno­va­tion gives us great con­fi­dence in our solu­tion and its role in mak­ing this indus­try viable.”

Q: Are you able to share more details about the flex­i­bil­i­ty of this Next-Gen ver­ti­port and how it can cater for mul­ti­ple air­craft and use cas­es?

AW: “Our mis­sion is to rev­o­lu­tionise cities across the world, mak­ing them more con­nect­ed and clean­er and to accel­er­ate the tran­si­tion to ful­ly elec­tric air trans­porta­tion. We, pur­pose­ful­ly, chose an urban set­ting for our Next-Gen ver­ti­port, sim­i­lar to Air One Coventry’s loca­tion that was close to a train sta­tion, high-rise build­ings and the city cen­tre.

“While our ini­tial ver­ti­port loca­tions are like­ly going to be air­ports and exist­ing heli­ports in line with pro­posed eVTOL routes and reg­u­la­to­ry guid­ance, we believe that the true poten­tial of Urban Air Mobil­i­ty can only be unlocked by pro­vid­ing speedy inter­modal con­nec­tiv­i­ty in and to urban loca­tions where peo­ple want to trav­el to.

“Both our land­ing and charg­ing infra­struc­ture are agnos­tic and will cater to mul­ti­ple air­craft. Its com­pact foot­print allows for deploy­ment to both rur­al and urban loca­tions. We encour­age OEMs to con­tin­ue work­ing with us close­ly — as our expe­ri­ence in design­ing and build­ing air­ports has taught us, that no air­port can be deliv­ered unless the air­craft specs and require­ments are ful­ly shared and under­stood. The more the indus­try works hand-in glove, the safer, and stronger this indus­try will become. Ulti­mate­ly, safe­ty will be the no.1 con­cern for reg­u­la­tors, but also for cus­tomers.

“Mike Whitak­er, Pres­i­dent Biden’s nom­i­nee as the next FAA Admin­is­tra­tor, who we knew well from his time at Super­nal and who gave the open­ing remarks at Air One and offi­cial­ly cut the rib­bon with us, empha­sis­es this need for col­lab­o­ra­tion, inter-oper­abil­i­ty and stan­dard­i­s­a­tion.”

Q: What does the roadmap look like for this Next-Gen over the next 12 months?

AW: “Over the next 12 months we will refine the tech­ni­cal ben­e­fits of our land­ing and charg­ing infra­struc­ture includ­ing safe­ty haz­ards caused by downwash/outwash, reduc­tion in noise pol­lu­tion and inno­v­a­tive ener­gy stor­age and man­age­ment.

“We are look­ing for­ward to start work­ing with some of our new Clients, titans in the mobil­i­ty space and, hope­ful­ly, deploy test ver­ti­ports in the Mid­dle East and Asia Pacif­ic and the US.  Last­ly, we are look­ing to com­plete our cur­rent invest­ment round which will help to accel­er­ate the sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ment of our Next-Gen ver­ti­ports.”