“FAA’s LAX Simulation Marks Major Progress for Joby Aviation”

Joby Avi­a­tion recent­ly post­ed a blog writ­ten by the company’s Head of Gov­ern­ment Pol­i­cy, Greg Bowles, on its web­site.

He writes, “Recent­ly, the FAA com­plet­ed an advanced human-in-the-loop sim­u­la­tion to test how eVTOL air­craft could safe­ly oper­ate at one of the busiest air­ports in the world: Los Ange­les Inter­na­tion­al Air­port (LAX).”

Bowles con­tin­ues, “Pic­ture this: inside the FAA’s state-of-the-art Air­port Facil­i­ties Ter­mi­nal Inte­gra­tion Lab­o­ra­to­ry (AFTIL) in New Jer­sey, researchers cre­at­ed a pho­to-real­is­tic, 3D mod­el of LAX. Then, pilots and air traf­fic con­trollers sim­u­lat­ed how our new air­craft would take-off, land and inte­grate into the air traf­fic flows of Los Ange­les. The facil­i­ty hous­es full-scale con­trol tow­er mock­ups, 360 and 210-degree tow­er sim­u­la­tors, and inte­grat­ed capa­bil­i­ties that con­nect with oth­er labs—including flight decks, a ter­mi­nal radar approach con­trol facil­i­ty (TRACON) and a Joby air­craft sim­u­la­tor.”

He adds, “The result is a high­ly real­is­tic test­bed for the oper­a­tional, pro­ce­dur­al, and human fac­tors aspects asso­ci­at­ed with next-gen­er­a­tion air­space inte­gra­tion.” 

Here is what was assessed:-

: Smooth Traf­fic Flow — Air­craft decon­flic­tion and traf­fic flows around LAX.

: Air Traf­fic Con­trol Coor­di­na­tion — Inte­gra­tion with exist­ing air traf­fic con­trol com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­ce­dures and sep­a­ra­tion stan­dards.

: Take­off and Land­ing Paths — Design and eval­u­a­tion of ver­ti­port approach and depar­ture paths.

: Human Fac­tors — Human-sys­tem inter­ac­tion, includ­ing pilot and con­troller work­load and com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Bowles points out, “This was not only a tech­ni­cal exer­cise but also a pow­er­ful demon­stra­tion of progress toward com­mer­cial mar­ket readi­ness. FAA offi­cials, eVTOL com­pa­nies, air­lines and local author­i­ties like Los Ange­les World Air­ports (LAWA) all came togeth­er to wit­ness first-hand how our air­craft can be safe­ly inte­grat­ed. The insights from this effort will direct­ly shape how elec­tric air taxis are inte­grat­ed into air­ports across the U.S.” 

For­mer Sim­u­lat­ed LAX Air­space (Cred­it: Michael Kupfer)

This work builds on ear­li­er joint stud­ies led by NASA, the FAA, Joby, and oth­ers, includ­ing a land­mark air traf­fic con­trol sim­u­la­tion in Dal­las air­space. That research estab­lished foun­da­tion­al prin­ci­ples for eVTOL oper­a­tions in dense, urban envi­ron­ments and direct­ly informed both vehi­cle require­ments and air­space inte­gra­tion strate­gies now being val­i­dat­ed at AFTIL and applied to real-world air­ports like LAX.

He con­tin­ues, “We com­mend the FAA for their vision and unwa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to safe­ty. With world-class facil­i­ties like the AFTIL sup­port­ing the mis­sion, the future of qui­et, clean avi­a­tion is being metic­u­lous­ly built, test­ed and refined right now.” 

And con­cludes, “As the U.S and oth­er coun­tries push for­ward with advanced air mobil­i­ty, ground­break­ing efforts like this LAX sim­u­la­tion sig­nal a clear mes­sage: sus­tain­able air trav­el is clos­er than ever to being an every­day real­i­ty for every­one.”

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.jobyaviation.com

(Top image: Joby Avi­a­tion)

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