FAA and DOT Break Ground on V‑PAR Facility for Advanced Air Mobility Research

The U.S. Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (DOT) and Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) held a ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny on June 25 for the Ver­ti­cal Take-Off and Land­ing Pro­ce­dures and Analy­sis Range (V‑PAR) at the Mike Mon­roney Aero­nau­ti­cal Cen­ter in Okla­homa City. The new facil­i­ty is designed to sup­port test­ing, train­ing, and oper­a­tional analy­sis for advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) air­craft, includ­ing elec­tric ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing (eVTOL) vehi­cles.

The approx­i­mate­ly $8.3 mil­lion project will cre­ate a ded­i­cat­ed envi­ron­ment for the FAA and indus­try part­ners to study ver­ti­cal take­off and land­ing oper­a­tions. Offi­cials empha­sized its role in ensur­ing safe inte­gra­tion of these air­craft into the Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem.

“The V‑PAR is a crit­i­cal step in help­ing the FAA bet­ter under­stand how to inte­grate advanced air mobil­i­ty air­craft safe­ly into the Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem,” said DOT Deputy Sec­re­tary Steven Brad­bury. “This facil­i­ty will strength­en our abil­i­ty to con­duct research, train peo­ple, and sup­port the future of avi­a­tion.”

FAA Deputy Admin­is­tra­tor Chris Roche­leau added: “As advanced air mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies con­tin­ue to evolve, the FAA must ensure they meet the same high safe­ty stan­dards expect­ed through­out the Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem. The V‑PAR will help us gath­er the data and oper­a­tional insights need­ed to sup­port their safe inte­gra­tion into the nation’s air­space.”

The ini­tial build­out of the design includes a touch­down and liftoff area, taxi­way, ver­t­i­craft apron with two park­ing spaces, a cov­ered ver­t­i­craft shel­ter, an obser­va­tion and oper­a­tions facil­i­ty, elec­tric air­craft charg­ing capa­bil­i­ty, and sup­port­ing infra­struc­ture such as light­ing and util­i­ties. Research activ­i­ties will focus on wake tur­bu­lence and sep­a­ra­tion, down­wash and out­wash effects, radiofre­quen­cy inter­fer­ence, ver­ti­port oper­a­tions, arrival and depar­ture routes, air­space pro­ce­dures, human fac­tors, emer­gency plan­ning, and flow sim­u­la­tions.

Project plan­ning dates back to fall 2021 with ini­tial con­cept stud­ies. Con­gress appro­pri­at­ed $6 mil­lion in spring 2024, design work by C.H. Guernsey (with ver­ti­port exper­tise from Heli­plan­ners) was com­plet­ed in Octo­ber 2025, and the con­struc­tion con­tract was award­ed to Maguire O’Hara Con­struc­tion in March 2026. Com­ple­tion is sched­uled for sum­mer 2027.

Future expan­sions could add more land­ing sites, expand­ed charg­ing infra­struc­ture, a sec­ondary ver­ti­pad, and a short take­off and land­ing run­way. The V‑PAR is posi­tioned to pro­vide essen­tial data for devel­op­ing stan­dards, pro­ce­dures, and work­force train­ing as the eVTOL sec­tor advances toward com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.