U.S: “Transportation Secretary Unveils Program to Fast-Track AAM Vehicles”

U.S Trans­porta­tion Sec­re­tary, Sean P. Duffy, has announced a new pilot pro­gram with­in the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (FAA) to accel­er­ate the deploy­ment of advanced air mobil­i­ty (AAM) vehi­cles, reports a press release.

Known as the eVTOL Inte­gra­tion Pilot Pro­gram (eIPP), the project is to form pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ships with State and local gov­ern­ment enti­ties and pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­nies to devel­op new frame­works and reg­u­la­tions for enabling safe oper­a­tions.

Duffy com­ment­ed, “The next great tech­no­log­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion in avi­a­tion is here. The Unit­ed States will lead the way, and doing so will cement America’s sta­tus as a glob­al leader in trans­porta­tion inno­va­tion.”

He con­tin­ued, “That means more high-pay­ing man­u­fac­tur­ing jobs and eco­nom­ic oppor­tu­ni­ty. By safe­ly test­ing the deploy­ment of these futur­is­tic air taxis and oth­er AAM vehi­cles, we can fun­da­men­tal­ly improve how the trav­el­ing pub­lic and prod­ucts move.”

The eIPP will include at least five pilot projects. This will run for three years after the first pro­gram becomes oper­a­tional. Envi­sioned eIPP oper­a­tions include pilot­ed and unmanned approach­es to:- 

: Short-range air taxis. 

: Longer-range, fixed wing flights.  

: Car­go. 

: Logis­tics and sup­ply serv­ing emer­gency man­age­ment, med­ical trans­port or off-shore ener­gy facil­i­ties. 

: Increas­ing automa­tion safe­ty. 

(Illus­tra­tion: Tay­lor Callery)

The release explains, “These new tech­nolo­gies have the poten­tial to trans­form avi­a­tion, includ­ing expand­ing con­nec­tiv­i­ty to rur­al Amer­i­can com­mu­ni­ties, reduc­ing road con­ges­tion in urban areas, and enhanc­ing emer­gency ser­vices or med­ical trans­port.” 

The action fol­lows Pres­i­dent Trump’s exec­u­tive order to unleash Amer­i­can drone dom­i­nance.

Bryan Bed­ford, FAA Admin­is­tra­tor, remarked, “This pro­gram gives us anoth­er oppor­tu­ni­ty to accel­er­ate safe eVTOL and advanced air mobil­i­ty oper­a­tions across the Unit­ed States. We will take the lessons learned from these projects to enable safe, scal­able AAM oper­a­tions nation­wide.”

Lead­ing U.S eVTOL Com­pa­nies like Joby, Archer and BETA Tech­nolo­gies will play a piv­otal role in the pilot project.

Kris­ten Costel­lo, BETA’s Head of Gov­ern­ment and Reg­u­la­to­ry Affairs, com­ment­ed, “The launch of this pro­gram is a crit­i­cal step in main­tain­ing U.S. lead­er­ship in aero­space, and it rein­forces the Administration’s ded­i­ca­tion to enabling a new era of Amer­i­can inno­va­tion.”

Adam Gold­stein, Founder and CEO of Archer Avi­a­tion, affirmed, “This is a land­mark moment for our indus­try and our coun­try. We have an admin­is­tra­tion that is pri­ori­tis­ing the inte­gra­tion of eVTOL oper­a­tions in U.S cities ahead of full cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in a prag­mat­ic way.”

He added, “These ear­ly flights will help cement Amer­i­can lead­er­ship in advanced avi­a­tion and set the stage for scaled com­mer­cial oper­a­tions.”

As part of the eIPP, the FAA is seek­ing par­tic­i­pants for a pub­lic-pri­vate part­ner­ship pro­gram to demon­strate the via­bil­i­ty of new AAM tech­nolo­gies includ­ing eVTOL air­craft in ways that deliv­er new ben­e­fits to the Amer­i­can pub­lic.  

Appli­cants must be a State, local, trib­al or ter­ri­to­r­i­al gov­ern­ment with a U.S‑based pri­vate sec­tor part­ner or part­ners. 

Par­tic­i­pants will use pilot­ed, option­al­ly pilot­ed, or unmanned AAM air­craft that will gen­er­al­ly be over 1,320 lbs. and may be capa­ble of car­ry­ing pas­sen­gers. Par­tic­i­pants will also include tech­nolo­gies enabling safe inte­gra­tion of these air­craft into the nation­al air­space sys­tem. 

More infor­ma­tion can be found here.

For more infor­ma­tion

https://www.transportation.gov

(Top image: Sean P. Duffy shak­ing hands with Archer CEO at Paris Air­show ’25 Cred­it: Archer Avi­a­tion)

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