FAA Releases New Design Guidelines for Vertiport Infrastructure

The Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) released last week new design guide­lines for ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture to sup­port Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty (AAM) air­craft.

https://www.faa.gov/sites/faa.gov/files/2022–09/eb-105-vertiports.pdf

An FAA state­ment says, “The design stan­dards will serve as the ini­tial step to pro­vide key infor­ma­tion for air­port own­ers, oper­a­tors and infra­struc­ture devel­op­ers to begin devel­op­ment of facil­i­ties that will sup­port oper­a­tions of AAM air­craft that are elec­tri­cal­ly pow­ered and take-off and land ver­ti­cal­ly.”

Shan­net­ta Grif­fin

Shan­net­ta Grif­fin, U.S Asso­ciate Admin­is­tra­tor for Air­ports, added, “Our coun­try is step­ping into a new era of avi­a­tion. These ver­ti­port design stan­dards pro­vide the foun­da­tion need­ed to begin safe­ly build­ing infra­struc­ture in this new era.” 

The design prin­ci­ples include cru­cial infor­ma­tion that design­ers and builders will require to fol­low, allow­ing for safe take­offs and land­ings.

They include:-

Safe­ty-crit­i­cal geom­e­try and design ele­ments: Dimen­sions for ver­ti­port touch­down and liftoff areas, addi­tion­al air­space need­ed for approach and depar­ture paths and load-bear­ing capac­i­ty. In the future FAA antic­i­pates a high rate of oper­a­tions at many ver­ti­ports.

Light­ing, mark­ings and visu­al aids: Guide­lines on mark­ings, light­ing and visu­al aids that iden­ti­fy the facil­i­ty as a ver­ti­port. The FAA rec­om­mends the Ver­ti­port Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion Sym­bol, as shown in the mid­dle of the graph­ic below.

Charg­ing and elec­tric infra­struc­ture: Ini­tial safe­ty stan­dards and guide­lines for bat­ter­ies and charg­ing equip­ment that will be cen­tral to ver­ti­ports.

On-air­port ver­ti­ports: Require­ments for air­ports look­ing to add ver­ti­ports to an exist­ing com­mer­cial air­port, includ­ing the dis­tance a ver­ti­port would have to be from a cur­rent run­way.

Ele­vat­ed ver­ti­ports: Require­ments and guide­lines for ver­ti­ports that may be on top of exist­ing struc­tures.

This guid­ance will be used until per­for­mance-based ver­ti­port design is devel­oped fur­ther.

https://www.faa.gov/airports/engineering/engineering_briefs/engineering_brief_105_vertiport_design

These lat­est design stan­dards are based around research con­duct­ed by the FAA, its indus­try part­ners and gen­er­al pub­lic feed­back.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-releases-vertiport-design-standards-support-safe-integration-advanced-air-mobility