UK’s first vertiport testbed gets green light, with building work to begin in Autumn

Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture has unveiled designs for the UK’s first per­ma­nent ver­ti­port test­bed for the elec­tric air taxi indus­try, along­side part­ners Bices­ter Motion and Ver­ti­cal Aero­space.

The images have been released today (Tues­day) as the project receives plan­ning per­mis­sion from Cher­well Dis­trict Coun­cil. It is the first per­ma­nent UK ver­ti­port infra­struc­ture pro­pos­al to secure plan­ning con­sent, with con­struc­tion to begin in the Autumn.

The ver­ti­port will include a com­pact 160 sq. m pas­sen­ger ter­mi­nal which will be a crit­i­cal facil­i­ty for test­ing ground infra­struc­ture and flight oper­a­tions and will play a sig­nif­i­cant role in enabling the next gen­er­a­tion of elec­tric, low noise avi­a­tion in the UK.

Dun­can Walk­er, Chief Exec­u­tive at Sky­ports Infra­struc­ture, said: “With the green light from Cher­well Dis­trict Coun­cil, now begins the excit­ing stage in ver­ti­port devel­op­ment: build­ing it. The tests and tri­als we con­duct at this facil­i­ty will be instru­men­tal to the future of qui­et, elec­tric, ver­ti­cal flight.

“Our ver­ti­port at Bices­ter Motion will facil­i­tate impor­tant learn­ings and demon­stra­tions that advance the adop­tion of AAM. We are proud to be play­ing a pio­neer­ing role in shap­ing the future of this excit­ing indus­try in the UK”

The new designs also show­case Vertical’s lat­est VX4 pro­to­type, which will be the first eVTOL air­craft to fly at the Sky­ports ver­ti­port. The VX4 is designed to be pilot­ed, car­ry four pas­sen­gers and has a range of up to 100 miles.

The air­craft suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed its first teth­ered pilot­ed flight in July and is now pro­gress­ing through its robust pilot­ed test flight pro­gramme.  Ver­ti­cal will use the Sky­ports ver­ti­port to con­duct demon­stra­tion flights and test key pro­ce­dures ahead of com­mer­cial launch.

Michael Cer­ven­ka, Chief Com­mer­cial & Tech­nol­o­gy Offi­cer at Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “The Sky­ports ver­ti­port is a crit­i­cal piece of infra­struc­ture, help­ing to get our VX4 air­craft up into the air and demon­strate to the world that the future of flight is elec­tric.

“We’re excit­ed to see what the ver­ti­port will look like as we move into an impor­tant phase of the indus­try – mak­ing this real. The tests we car­ry out here in Bices­ter with our VX4 will advance our under­stand­ing of elec­tric avi­a­tion and rev­o­lu­tionise how we trav­el – paving the way for zero emis­sions, qui­et flight.”

The images show the ver­ti­port posi­tioned adja­cent to Bices­ter Motion’s exist­ing gen­er­al avi­a­tion grass run­ways, where it will con­tin­ue the airfield’s long his­to­ry of aero­space inno­va­tion.

Daniel Geoghe­gan, chief exec­u­tive, Bices­ter Motion said: “This is a sig­nif­i­cant moment for Bices­ter Motion and the future of avi­a­tion here. The for­mer RAF Bices­ter was born in a peri­od of intense tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion and played its role in 1938 when the Hal­i­fax pro­to­type L7244 flew its maid­en tri­al flights from Bices­ter.

“Today, we con­tin­ue to wel­come air­craft from all eras includ­ing new mobil­i­ty tech­nolo­gies to pro­vide a viable future for our his­toric air­field through such pio­neer­ing part­ner­ships as Sky­ports. The ver­ti­port green light enables us to con­tin­ue to host such avi­a­tion inno­va­tion and advance a world where sus­tain­able and acces­si­ble elec­tric avi­a­tion is in reach for all, with Bices­ter Motion at the cen­tre.”

The ver­ti­port is being devel­oped as part of the Advanced Mobil­i­ty Ecosys­tem Con­sor­tium: a group of lead­ing British avi­a­tion, tech­nol­o­gy and trans­porta­tion organ­i­sa­tions pio­neer­ing AAM in the UK, backed by the UK Research and Inno­va­tion (UKRI) Future Flight Chal­lenge.

It will also serve as a key node for the Consortium’s wider test­ing pro­gramme, includ­ing demon­stra­tion flights, ground oper­a­tions, air­craft inte­gra­tion, and pub­lic and stake­hold­er engage­ment.

James Rich­mond, Head of Future Flight at Con­sor­tium lead Atkin­sRéalis, said: “The ver­ti­port liv­ing lab will go beyond demon­strat­ing flight pro­ce­dures and will val­i­date the entire ecosys­tem the part­ners have cre­at­ed from the ground up.

“Gain­ing plan­ning con­sent was a crit­i­cal mile­stone and pro­vid­ed impor­tant learn­ing for all stake­hold­ers involved, help­ing to enable and scale advanced air mobil­i­ty in the UK.”

Images cred­it: Sky­ports.