Australia: Skyportz and Microflite to explore options for electric air taxi vertiport sites along Melbourne’s Yarra River

Microflite has said it plans to work with Sky­portz in Mel­bourne and look at options for new elec­tric air taxi vert­port sites to access Aus­trali­a’s cap­i­tal city.

The com­pa­ny is the oper­a­tor of the Mel­bourne heli­port on the Yarra Riv­er, and in a recent announce­ment, Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer Rod­ney Hig­gins said it plans to replace a fleet of tourism heli­copters with zero-emis­sions elec­tric air taxis.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Microflite said it wants to work with the soon-to-be-elect­ed new Lord May­or and the Vic­to­ri­an gov­ern­ment to explore new land­ing options, start­ing with the exist­ing heli­pad on the Yarra Riv­er.

Hig­gins said: “We have been fol­low­ing close­ly the devel­op­ment of numer­ous elec­tric air taxi pro­to­types in recent years and it appears clear that the fron­trun­ners will be avail­able for com­mer­cial oper­a­tions soon.

“The avi­a­tion indus­try needs to do its bit for the envi­ron­ment and elec­tric avi­a­tion will have a place very soon for short range oper­a­tions. In addi­tion to decar­bon­is­ing avi­a­tion, we expect these air­craft will be much qui­eter, safer and afford­able.”

The Vic­to­ri­an state government’s Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty Action Plan states;

“The AAM Action Plan will remove bar­ri­ers to indus­try devel­op­ment and sup­port new invest­ment into the State. It will pre­pare Victoria’s econ­o­my to ben­e­fit from the range of new clean ener­gy indus­tries, tech­nol­o­gy and jobs that will strength­en Victoria’s capa­bil­i­ty and sup­ply chain across the aero­space, advanced man­u­fac­tur­ing and renew­ables sec­tor.

Invest­ment in these tech­nolo­gies will unlock new zero-emis­sion capa­bil­i­ties across logis­tics, ser­vice deliv­ery, emer­gency ser­vices, region­al con­nec­tiv­i­ty and pas­sen­ger trans­port, as well as sup­port Victoria’s Cli­mate Change Strat­e­gy tar­get of net zero by 2045.

The Aus­tralian air safe­ty reg­u­la­tor, CASA, is prepar­ing the skies for this rev­o­lu­tion in avi­a­tion and recent­ly released ver­ti­port guide­lines to encour­age new land­ing sites.

Mel­bourne based ver­ti­port devel­op­er, Sky­portz® has worked with  Con­tr­eras Earl Archi­tec­ture and Pascall+Watson to devel­op a ver­ti­port con­cept at Bat­man Park on the Yarra Riv­er to replace the long serv­ing heli­pad.

Under this plan, the site would also be a mul­ti modal hub for elec­tric trans­port, includ­ing fer­ries and hire boats. A cafe would pro­vide an area for peo­ple to view the action.

Clem New­ton-Brown, CEO of Sky­portz, added: “We want to work with Microflite, CASA, the State Gov­ern­ment and the new Lord May­or to cre­ate one of the first pur­pose built ver­ti­ports in the world.

“Elec­tric avi­a­tion is going to be a mul­ti bil­lion dol­lar indus­try with sig­nif­i­cant ben­e­fits for those cities that are first movers. Mel­bourne is per­fect­ly placed to seize this oppor­tu­ni­ty with its exist­ing heli­port site that has been in oper­a­tion for over 50 years.”

New­ton-Brown sees the Yarra Riv­er ver­ti­port as the first in a net­work of future land­ing sites that will be enabled with these new air­craft.

He has iden­ti­fied Fish­er­mans Bend or the Port for a larg­er ver­ti­port base where air­craft will be charged, main­tained and han­g­ered.

In addi­tion to the exist­ing Bat­man Park heli­pad site, South­ern Cross Sta­tion and the sports precinct have been iden­ti­fied as poten­tial vertistop loca­tions for set­ting down and pick­ing up pas­sen­gers, sub­ject to approvals by State and local gov­ern­ments.

Sky­portz has patent­ed a mod­u­lar ver­ti­pad prod­uct to enable pri­vate com­mer­cial prop­er­ty own­ers to join the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty net­work.

New­ton-Brown added: “The key to this indus­try is break­ing the nexus between avi­a­tion and exist­ing air­ports. We need to devel­op a net­work of new ver­ti­port sites if the indus­try is to reach its poten­tial.

All three lead­ing can­di­dates for Lord May­or of Mel­bourne are pos­i­tive about the con­cept. Elec­tions will be held this month.