UK: Open Skies Network reveals DronePort plans at Cornwall’s ASONE Park to support future eVTOL and eSTOL aircraft

Open Skies Net­work has signed a part­ner­ship with ASONE Park to devel­op England’s first DronePort and avi­a­tion cam­pus, to sup­port new avi­a­tion at St Mer­ryn Aero­drome in north Corn­wall.

In the first stage of the ASONE Park devel­op­ment, the part­ner­ship will see the St Mer­ryn Aero­drome at ASONE Park join­ing the Open Skies Net­work, pro­vid­ing a new des­ti­na­tion for New Avi­a­tion Tech­nolo­gies in Corn­wall. In line with the ASONE Park mas­ter­plan, Open Skies Net­work will lead devel­op­ment of an avi­a­tion cam­pus on site, estab­lish­ing a DronePort to sup­port future eVTOL and eSTOL pilot­ed air­craft. 

Gareth What­more, CEO of Open Skies Net­work, said: “We are real­ly excit­ed to announce this part­ner­ship, which will posi­tion Open Skies Net­work at ASONE Park as a cen­tre for next-gen­er­a­tion avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies. Corn­wall is already home to sev­er­al grow­ing aero­space and space clus­ters, includ­ing activ­i­ty around Newquay Air­port and Space­port Corn­wall.

“St Mer­ryn Aero­drome will com­ple­ment these ini­tia­tives; pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al test­ing, devel­op­ment and oper­a­tional capac­i­ty for future avi­a­tion ser­vices, such as the drone deliv­ery ser­vice we are cur­rent­ly devel­op­ing for the NHS between Corn­wall and the Isles of Scil­ly.”

The part­ner­ship builds on the site’s avi­a­tion her­itage as Cornwall’s first pub­lic aero­drome. 

Orig­i­nal­ly devel­oped as a pub­lic aero­drome dur­ing the 1930s, the air­field was com­man­deered by the Admi­ral­ty in 1937, As HMS Vul­ture, it pro­vid­ed the Roy­al Navy’s pri­ma­ry train­ing ground for air com­bat in WW2, serv­ing as an impor­tant train­ing base for many years after­wards.

The site was acquired by local farmer Bob Par­tridge in 1967, under whose own­er­ship it became the UK’s main gyro­copter train­ing base. The 130-acre site is now being devel­oped by his fam­i­ly into a mixed-use dig­i­tal hub to sup­port the region’s cre­ative, film and music indus­tries.

ASONE Park has ambi­tious £140 mil­lion rede­vel­op­ment plans to build and run a world-class cre­ative cen­tre. On site ele­ments include a set of film stu­dios, a live-work Vil­lage and Hotel, an Out­door Events and Live Venue, a Per­for­mance Vil­lage and Avi­a­tion Hub, as well as four film and sound stages and a Her­itage Dis­trict and Vis­i­tor hub.

The goal is to cre­ate a mul­ti-use avi­a­tion envi­ron­ment where exist­ing tra­di­tion­al avi­a­tion and emerg­ing tech­nolo­gies can oper­ate togeth­er, safe­ly and effi­cient­ly pre­serv­ing her­itage whilst attract­ing new skills and capa­bil­i­ty to the site.

Plans for the cam­pus include installing themed infra­struc­ture to sup­port new avi­a­tion plat­forms — such as drones and elec­tric air­craft — to oper­ate com­mer­cial­ly, or at High Tech­nol­o­gy Readi­ness Lev­el (TRL) tests, with­in the med­ical, logis­tics, search and res­cue, agri­cul­tur­al, envi­ron­men­tal mon­i­tor­ing and cre­ative indus­tries sec­tors.

Rob Simp­son, Direc­tor at ASONE Park, said: “We are delight­ed that Open Skies Net­work has agreed to lead devel­op­ment of the avi­a­tion cam­pus at ASONE Park. It’s work open­ing up the skies to sup­port the next gen­er­a­tion of avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies con­tin­ues St Mer­ryn Aero­drome’s long his­to­ry of avi­a­tion inno­va­tion and promis­es, not only to add val­ue for the avi­a­tion indus­try itself, but also to cre­ate a unique capa­bil­i­ty propo­si­tion for the park.  

“We look for­ward to work­ing close­ly with the team to deliv­er our shared vision of a park that is a gen­uine hub for avi­a­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion, build­ing on Cornwall’s grow­ing rep­u­ta­tion as a cen­tre for the aero­space and cre­ative indus­tries, and bring­ing new, high-val­ue jobs to the area.”

The Open Skies team has already devel­oped Beyond Visu­al Line of Sight (BVLOS) capa­bil­i­ties in the region and is now work­ing with the Civ­il Avi­a­tion Author­i­ty to con­nect the St Mer­ryn site to its wider net­work. 

Open Skies Net­work will help enable all forms of new avi­a­tion at the air­field, includ­ing civil­ian uncrewed air­craft sys­tems (drones), eVTOL and eSTOL air­craft and oth­er emerg­ing avi­a­tion tech­nolo­gies.

The part­ner­ship will help cre­ate the infra­struc­ture, oper­a­tional frame­works and part­ner­ships need­ed to sup­port activ­i­ties for TRL test and eval­u­a­tion, train­ing, and future com­mer­cial oper­a­tion and adop­tion. 

The avi­a­tion cam­pus offers a range of oppor­tu­ni­ties for aero­space com­pa­nies, drone and eVTOL devel­op­ers, uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions, tech­nol­o­gy start up,and logis­tics and avi­a­tion ser­vice providers.

It is open to enquiries for future avi­a­tion activ­i­ty includ­ing short- and long-term avi­a­tion oper­a­tions, research and devel­op­ment pro­grammes, flight test­ing and demon­stra­tion activ­i­ties, man­u­fac­tur­ing and assem­bly, tech­nol­o­gy tri­als and inno­va­tion projects, train­ing and oper­a­tional sup­port.