“Flying Taxis will Take to Britain’s Skies by 2028, While Drones to be Used for Emergency Services and Fighting Crime,” Says UK Government

It’s offi­cial! Fly­ing taxis will be whizzing around the British skies by 2028. The UK Gov­ern­ment has said so. It is part of a new action plan spear­head­ed by the industry’s joint Future of Flight and announced by the Depart­ment for Trans­port (DFT), reports a press release. While drones will assist the emer­gency ser­vices as well the police to fight crime.

Min­is­ters will today (March 18th) set out ambi­tious plans to turn this “Jet­son-sci­ence-fic­tion idea” into real­i­ty by over­haul­ing cur­rent reg­u­la­tions and infra­struc­ture. The hope is for fly­ing taxis to be first pilot­ed by 2026; then to rou­tine­ly fly over­head by 2028; and, more sur­pris­ing­ly, oper­ate autonomous­ly just two years lat­er.

Mean­while, drones will be using the low-alti­tude air­space to deliv­er emer­gency sup­plies as well as to tack­le crime. Min­is­ters believe this aero­nau­ti­cal green rev­o­lu­tion could boost the UK econ­o­my by UKP45 bil­lion come the end of this decade. 

Antho­ny Browne, UK Avi­a­tion and Tech­nol­o­gy Min­is­ter, com­ment­ed,  “Cut­ting-edge bat­tery tech­nol­o­gy will rev­o­lu­tionise trans­port as we know it. From fly­ing taxis to emer­gency ser­vice drones, we’re mak­ing sure the UK is at the fore­front of this dra­mat­ic shift in trans­porta­tion – improv­ing people’s lives and boost­ing the econ­o­my.” He added, “This plan will make sure we have the infra­struc­ture and reg­u­la­tion in place to make it a real­i­ty.”

Antho­ny Browne

The “action plan” is unveiled on the same day as Browne vis­its the lead­ing UK eVTOL com­pa­ny, Ver­ti­cal Aero­space in Bris­tol. The com­pa­ny is build­ing and tri­alling its all-elec­tric VX‑4 and will be show­cas­ing lat­est devel­op­ments along with pro­posed demon­stra­tion flights at the Farn­bor­ough Air­show in July.

Stephen Fitz­patrick, Founder and CEO of the com­pa­ny, remarked,  “The UK has a long her­itage in aero­space and the pub­li­ca­tion of this plan sets out how we will lead the next rev­o­lu­tion of flight. With gov­ern­ment and busi­ness work­ing togeth­er, we can unleash the huge eco­nom­ic, envi­ron­men­tal and social ben­e­fits of zero emis­sions flight glob­al­ly.”

First imag­ined in the Flight­path to the Future in 2022, this joint plan between indus­try and gov­ern­ment sets out the strate­gic direc­tion of the sec­tor over the next 5 years, strik­ing a bal­ance between inno­va­tion, secu­ri­ty, safe­ty and cut­ting emis­sions.

Oth­er pro­pos­als include:-

: Allow­ing drones to fly Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS), so that the sec­tor can grow with­out lim­it­ing the skies for oth­er air­craft.

: Breath­ing life into small­er aero­dromes by set­ting out how they can oper­ate as ver­ti­ports for eVTOLS.

: Devel­op­ing stan­dards to improve secu­ri­ty for drones to boost pub­lic safe­ty.

: Engag­ing com­mu­ni­ties and local author­i­ties so that they can enjoy the eco­nom­ic and social ben­e­fits of these tech­nolo­gies.

West Mid­lands Police and Suc­cess­ful Deploy­ment of Drones (Cred­it: West Mid­lands Police)

The ben­e­fits of employ­ing drones is already seen in the UK, where the West Mid­lands Police uses these craft to tack­le vio­lent crime and anti­so­cial behav­iour. Last July, a drone team was deployed, suc­cess­ful­ly iden­ti­fy­ing two offend­ers and anoth­er sus­pect at a speed and dis­tance that would have tak­en ground offi­cers hours to track down.

Drones are also assist­ing front­line NHS staff to save lives. For six months between Octo­ber 2022 and March 2023, the UK drone ser­vice provider Sky­far­er part­nered with Uni­ver­si­ty Hos­pi­tals Coven­try and War­wick­shire NHS Trust and Med­ical Logis­tics UK deliv­ered sur­gi­cal implants and pathol­o­gy sam­ples between sites. In one case, drones reli­ably helped cut deliv­ery times between Coven­try and Rug­by hos­pi­tals from up to an hour to just 18 min­utes or a 70 per­cent decrease.

Dun­can Walk­er, CEO of Sky­ports and Chair­man of the Future of Flight Indus­try Group, said, “The UK is home to one of the world’s most impor­tant aero­space indus­tries and is in an ide­al posi­tion to be a pio­neer in the next era of avi­a­tion. The gov­ern­ment and indus­try have a joint com­mit­ment to sup­port the devel­op­ment, indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion and intro­duc­tion of new avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies. Con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion will ensure that we cap­i­talise on the sig­nif­i­cant domes­tic and inter­na­tion­al mar­ket oppor­tu­ni­ties pre­sent­ed by the future of flight.”

The release explains, “The Future of Flight action plan con­tains mea­sures to make drone appli­ca­tions and assess­ments eas­i­er by cre­at­ing new and sim­ple dig­i­tal plat­forms that oper­a­tors can use – ensur­ing com­pa­nies and pub­lic ser­vices are no longer shack­led by red tape and get drones up and fly­ing quick­er.”

It goes on, “It will also enable the devel­op­ment of ver­ti­ports – mini-air­ports for drones and elec­tric air­craft that take off ver­ti­cal­ly – by devel­op­ing cer­ti­fi­ca­tion stan­dards and review­ing the use of exist­ing infra­struc­ture to deliv­er at speed, boost safe­ty and secu­ri­ty and put the pas­sen­ger first.”

Sky­far­er and Med­ical Logis­tics Tri­al Deliv­er­ing Sur­gi­cal Implants and Pathol­o­gy Sam­ples (Cred­it: Sky­far­er)

Indus­try part­ners are to under­take mul­ti­ple indus­try-lead­ing tri­als to explore new ways to oper­ate drones BVLOS as well as demon­strate elec­tric air­craft by keep­ing acci­dents to a min­i­mum and mak­ing the most of tech­no­log­i­cal advances. This could include find­ing and repair­ing faults more quick­ly on the rail­way net­work lead­ing to few­er delays and can­cel­la­tions for train pas­sen­gers.

By sup­port­ing R&D in elec­tric air­craft and drones, and with the help of key part­ners like the CAA, the action plan aims to ush­er in a new era of eco-friend­ly avi­a­tion and boost the econ­o­my with new invest­ments, ensur­ing the UK cap­tures the full poten­tial of this emerg­ing glob­al indus­try as a force for good and a dri­ver of growth.

Sophie O’Sullivan, Head of Future Safe­ty and Inno­va­tion at the UK Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty, com­ment­ed, “Avi­a­tion stands on the cusp of its next, poten­tial­ly biggest, rev­o­lu­tion since the inven­tion of the jet engine. Drones, eVTOL and oth­er dif­fer­ent vehi­cles have the poten­tial to change trans­porta­tion options for­ev­er. Our role in this bright future of avi­a­tion will be enabling tech­no­log­i­cal advances and pro­vid­ing reg­u­la­to­ry sup­port while ensur­ing that all forms of new avi­a­tion tech­nol­o­gy enjoy the same high safe­ty stan­dards as tra­di­tion­al avi­a­tion.”

Julian Field­en-Page, Atkin­sRéalis Mar­ket Direc­tor of Future Flight, added: “The UK is well-posi­tioned to lead the future of flight and Atkin­sRéalis wel­comes the release of this roadmap, which will help to har­ness the eco­nom­ic and mobil­i­ty poten­tial of drones and eVTOL advanced air mobil­i­ty.

“It is vital for the indus­try to be aligned and have a clear vision for how these nov­el and sus­tain­able air­craft will inte­grate into a com­plex air­space envi­ron­ment. The pio­neer­ing work we are lead­ing through the Air Mobil­i­ty Ecosys­tem Con­sor­tium is piv­otal to this and we are pro­gress­ing towards demon­stra­tion flights lat­er this year, with the most recent mile­stones being the devel­op­ment of a ver­ti­port test­bed in Bices­ter and tri­alling air traf­fic con­trol sim­u­la­tions.”

He con­cludes: “The Con­sor­tium is explor­ing key aspects of the pas­sen­ger expe­ri­ence, vehi­cle oper­a­tion, air­space nav­i­ga­tion, ground charg­ing, secu­ri­ty pro­vi­sion and local stake­hold­er engage­ment. This shows what can be achieved when indus­try col­lab­o­rates, with Gov­ern­ment sup­port, to ensure the UK builds on its his­to­ry as a leader in avi­a­tion inno­va­tion.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://vertical-aerospace.com/

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/future-of-flight-action-plan

https://skyports.net/

(Top image: Dai­ly Mail)

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