Share of £30 million in UK funding available as second phase of Future Flight Challenge opens

UK Research and Inno­va­tion (UKRI) has opened up phase two of the Future Flight Chal­lenge, which aims to rev­o­lu­tionise the way peo­ple, goods and ser­vices fly in the UK.

The four-year, £125 mil­lion Indus­tri­al Strat­e­gy Chal­lenge Fund (ISCF) pro­gramme start­ed with phase one in Sep­tem­ber 2019, which con­sist­ed of a two-day work­shop for suc­cess­ful appli­cants to refine, val­i­date and col­lab­o­rate on the chal­lenge of future flight.

For phase two, UK-reg­is­tered busi­ness­es now have until 12noon on 1st July to apply for a share of up to £30 mil­lion in fund­ing, to devel­op inte­grat­ed avi­a­tion sys­tems and vehi­cle tech­nolo­gies that enable new class­es of elec­tric or autonomous air vehi­cles.

Fund­ing will be for projects with a dura­tion of up to 18 months, but the UKRI said will also accept projects which can deliv­er ‘rapid impact’.

A sum­ma­ry on the web­site says: “Solu­tions should be able to be inte­grat­ed into a mature oper­a­tional envi­ron­ment, ensur­ing safe and reli­able oper­a­tion in flight and on the ground.

“We plan to open phase 3 of this pro­gramme in win­ter 2021 when we will invite projects, includ­ing those who are not part of phase 2, to demon­strate an inte­grat­ed ‘sys­tem of sys­tems’ approach to the oper­a­tion of new air vehi­cles in non-seg­re­gat­ed air­space.”

This com­pe­ti­tion phase has 2 strands. This is strand 1.

Strand 1, the ‘fast track’ strand, encour­ages appli­ca­tions from small­er busi­ness­es and organ­i­sa­tions who may not work with­in the aero­space or avi­a­tion sec­tor.

Strand 2 will focus on larg­er projects and encour­age appli­ca­tions that seek to inte­grate tech­nolo­gies and sys­tems.

The Future Flight Chal­lenge also aims to posi­tion the UK as a world leader in avi­a­tion prod­ucts and mar­kets worth more than $675 bil­lion (£559bn) to 2050.

It will sup­port the devel­op­ment, in the UK, of new tech­nolo­gies from freight-car­ry­ing drones to urban air vehi­cles to hybrid-elec­tric region­al air­craft. The chal­lenge will also devel­op the sup­port­ing ground infrastructure,regulation and con­trol sys­tems, required to use these new air­craft prac­ti­cal­ly and safe­ly.

These new modes of trav­el will increase mobil­i­ty, reduce road con­ges­tion, improve con­nec­tiv­i­ty, increase UK man­u­fac­tur­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and help avi­a­tion to reduce its envi­ron­men­tal impact around the world.

And British-based firms are already push­ing on with plans to devel­op their own air­craft for the urban air mobil­i­ty indus­try. Ver­ti­cal Aero­space in Bris­tol unveiled a pro­to­type of its ‘Ser­aph’ eVTOL pas­sen­ger air­craft in Canary Wharf ear­li­er this year, while Lon­don-based Autonomous Flight is work­ing on the first autonomous-flown air­craft — the Y6S.

Any com­pa­nies which are inter­est­ed in apply­ing, or want to find out more infor­ma­tion about phase two of the Future Flight Chal­lenge, can click here.