Bicester Motion and Skyports unveil UK’s first vertiport testbed, with Vertical Aerospace to use facility when it opens at end of 2024

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture has signed an agree­ment to devel­op the UK’s first ver­ti­port test­bed at Bices­ter Motion, Oxford­shire. The 444-acre estate includes a com­pact 160 sq. m. pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal which aims to open its doors by the end of the year.

The new ver­ti­port, posi­tioned adja­cent to Bices­ter Motion’s exist­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion grass run­ways, will serve as a key node for ear­ly ver­ti­port net­work plan­ning and demon­stra­tions. Bris­tol-based Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has con­firmed it will use the space to con­duct demon­stra­tion flights and test key pro­ce­dures ahead of com­mer­cial launch.

Dun­can Walk­er, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer, Sky­ports, said: “Our ver­ti­port at Bices­ter Motion is ide­al­ly locat­ed to serve as a cen­tral hub for the UK’s advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try.  

“The facil­i­ty will be employed by Sky­ports and our strate­gic part­ners to test and refine all aspects of our ground tech­nol­o­gy and oper­a­tions with­in a UK con­text. This will also be a key loca­tion for ear­ly demon­stra­tion flights in the UK and will help to pave the way for per­ma­nent oper­a­tions in the future.” 

Andrew Macmil­lan, chief com­mer­cial and strat­e­gy offi­cer at Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, added: “At Ver­ti­cal we are pio­neer­ing a new, has­sle-free way to trav­el with zero emis­sions, but we can’t do this alone. Cre­at­ing the right infra­struc­ture is crit­i­cal to get­ting elec­tric air­craft into the air and the UK’s first ver­ti­port will help accel­er­ate this by pro­vid­ing cru­cial learn­ings to the indus­try.  Along with our part­ners we are excit­ed to show the world the ben­e­fits of elec­tric avi­a­tion.”

In Octo­ber 2022, Sky­ports launched a Liv­ing Lab ter­mi­nal in the USA with renowned air­craft part­ner Joby Avi­a­tion. In the same year, Sky­ports inau­gu­rat­ed its Euro­pean ver­ti­port test­bed with Groupe ADP in France.

In Feb­ru­ary 2024, Sky­ports, the Dubai Roads and Trans­port Author­i­ty and Joby Avi­a­tion penned an agree­ment to launch com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices in Dubai by 2026.

Sky­ports’ new ver­ti­port at Bices­ter Motion, which has been sub­mit­ted to Cher­well Dis­trict Coun­cil, has drawn inspi­ra­tion from Sky­ports’ exist­ing test­beds in Paris and Cal­i­for­nia. It will include: 

• A com­pact ter­mi­nal, con­struct­ed on a plot of 0.42 acres (0.17 hectares), to show­case ver­ti­port infrastructure’s effi­cient nature and high­light the capac­i­ty for seam­less inte­gra­tion into urban land­scapes, where space is at a pre­mi­um, and facil­i­tate fast pas­sen­ger through­put
• Pas­sen­ger pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties which will include access con­trol gates, weight and bal­ance opti­mi­sa­tion, and iden­ti­ty val­i­da­tion, ver­i­fi­ca­tion and screen­ing. The addi­tion of a ded­i­cat­ed pas­sen­ger lounge will demon­strate a com­pre­hen­sive cus­tomer expe­ri­ence
• An oper­a­tions room will be equipped with Sky­ports’ suite of Ver­ti­port Automa­tion Sys­tem (VAS) tech­nol­o­gy, which will fea­ture a bespoke resource man­age­ment and sched­ul­ing mod­ule, to enable high through­put air­craft agnos­tic oper­a­tions
• Sit­u­a­tion­al aware­ness mod­ule to pro­vide visu­al­i­sa­tion tools for com­pre­hen­sive air­space and ver­ti­port perime­ter mon­i­tor­ing. The air­side area will com­prise a sin­gle final approach and take off area and one stand

The strate­gic loca­tion of Sky­ports’ Bices­ter Motion ver­ti­port, approx­i­mate­ly 1 hour 40 dri­ve from cen­tral Lon­don by road and close to Oxford and the Cotswolds, will demon­strate how air taxi ser­vices will pro­vide a vital link between urban cen­tres, region­al, tourism and retail hubs. By air taxi, the same jour­ney will take less than 25 min­utes. 

Daniel Geoghe­gan, chief exec­u­tive, Bices­ter Motion said: “Our agree­ment is a major step for UK avi­a­tion inno­va­tion. Part­ner­ing with such an inno­v­a­tive com­pa­ny as Sky­ports is not only a sig­nif­i­cant boost to Oxfordshire’s avi­a­tion clus­ter but also will facil­i­tate the devel­op­ment and acces­si­bil­i­ty to a new sus­tain­able, low-car­bon and futur­is­tic mode of trans­port across the world.  

“This news reflects the next chap­ter in Bices­ter Motion’s evo­lu­tion of avi­a­tion and presents the oppor­tu­ni­ty for Bices­ter and the coun­ty to be at the fore­front of this excit­ing pio­neer­ing indus­try. 

“We have already had suc­cess­ful spe­cial­ist drone flight test­ing from the air­field and these eVTOLs will use elec­tric pow­er to hov­er, take off, and land ver­ti­cal­ly mean­ing that noise is to a min­i­mum and pio­neer­ing sus­tain­able flight and trav­el are near­er a real­i­ty.” 

Devel­oped as part of the Advanced Mobil­i­ty Ecosys­tem Con­sor­tium and backed by Inno­vate UK’s Future Flight Chal­lenge, the ver­ti­port will serve as a key node for ear­ly ver­ti­port net­work plan­ning and demon­stra­tions, as well as for the Consortium’s wider test­ing pro­gramme and pub­lic and stake­hold­er engage­ment.

Gary Cutts, chal­lenge direc­tor — Future Flight, Inno­vate UK, added: “The UKRI Future Flight Chal­lenge was launched with the objec­tive of accel­er­at­ing the devel­op­ment and inte­gra­tion of inno­v­a­tive avi­a­tion solu­tions for UK indus­try and com­mu­ni­ties. Through flag­ship projects such as AMEC, we’re ensur­ing that the UK remains firm­ly on the map as a lead­ing con­trib­u­tor to the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion.

“Sky­ports’ ver­ti­port at Bices­ter Motion is instru­men­tal to this objec­tive. As a hub for research­ing, test­ing and demon­strat­ing ground and air oper­a­tions for the advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try, it will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in devel­op­ing a UK ver­ti­port net­work and imple­ment­ing com­mer­cial air taxi ser­vices in the future.”