Seoul to Begin Trialling eVTOL flights in 2024

The South Kore­an city of Seoul is to tri­al eVTOL flights start­ing next year, reports koreatimes.co.kr. Demon­stra­tions are to begin with a 5 mile route along the Ara Water­way from the Drone Test­ing and Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Cen­tre to Gyeyang New Town in Incheon on the out­skirts of the city.

Anoth­er, an 8.5 mile route, is planned from Seoul’s Jam­sil Heli­port to Sue­so Sta­tion along the Tan­cheon riv­er. Fol­low­ing these tri­als, the city gov­ern­ment plans to intro­duce a tourism ser­vice along the Han Riv­er, which flows through Seoul.

The tests rep­re­sent a much larg­er project around Korea to com­mer­cialise this new means of trans­port over met­ro­pol­i­tan areas, start­ing in 2025, as part of South Korea’s K‑UAM Grand Chal­lenge.

The planned routes will be car­ried out over two phas­es. They include a con­nec­tion between Gim­po Inter­na­tion­al Air­port and Yeoui­do island, Seoul’s main bank­ing dis­trict, a flight of 11 miles along the Han, and the Kin­tex Con­ven­tion Cen­tre, an 8 mile flight also across the riv­er. 

Han Riv­er (Cred­it: Trav­el Through Life)

“The Seoul city gov­ern­ment, togeth­er with the land min­istry, is to car­ry out a two-stage demon­stra­tion test in the sec­ond half of this year to ver­i­fy and ensure the safe­ty of the project,” explained a Gov­ern­ment offi­cial.

The city will con­duct the first-stage study in open ter­rain in the sec­ond half of this year, select pre­ferred project oper­a­tors and launch the sec­ond-stage test for the cap­i­tal area next year. The arti­cle states, “Flight routes, vehi­cle safe­ty, avi­a­tion com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works, noise pol­lu­tion and oth­ers will be sub­ject to the test in the sec­ond stage.”

Present­ly, the city is seek­ing loca­tions to con­struct ver­ti­ports as well as oth­er hubs like trans­form­ing exist­ing heli­pads for Urban Air Mobil­i­ty (UAM) vehi­cles. The city aims to unveil lat­er this year its ambi­tious plans on UAM, detail­ing both mid and long-term goals.

South Korea’s K‑UAM Grand Chal­lenge rep­re­sents five con­sor­tia appoint­ed by Korea’s Min­istry of Land, Infra­struc­ture and Trans­port. Agree­ments were signed led by mobile com­mu­ni­ca­tions com­pa­nies SK Tele­com, KT and LG UPlus, car rental com­pa­ny Lotte Group and Kore­an Air Lines (KAL).

Joby Avi­a­tion Joins Forces With SK Tele­com To Launch Fly­ing Taxis In South Korea (Cred­it: Joby)

: SK Tele­com is teamed with Joby Avi­a­tion, Han­wha Sys­tems and Korea Air­ports.
: KT leads a team includ­ing automak­er Hyundai Motor and Hyundai Engi­neer­ing & Con­struc­tion.
: LG UPlus is part­nered with Kakao Mobil­i­ty and GS Engi­neer­ing & Con­struc­tion.
: The Lotte team includes oper­a­tor MintAir.
: KAL is teamed with Incheon Inter­na­tion­al Air­port, Dae­woo Engi­neer­ing & Con­struc­tion and Jeju Air.

Only con­sor­tia that grad­u­ate from the first phase will par­tic­i­pate in the sec­ond.

(News Source: www.koreatimes.co.kr)

(Top image: EHang 216 Fly­ing Over Seoul)