Urban Air Mobility simulator to be set up in Ohio airport as part of AFWERX Accelerate event

A ground­break­ing cer­e­mo­ny to build an Urban Air Mobil­i­ty sim­u­la­tor facil­i­ty at Spring­field-Beck­ley Air­port in Ohio will take place today (Thurs­day) dur­ing AFWERX Accel­er­ate, with both Beta Tech­nolo­gies and Joby Avi­a­tion in atten­dance.

The week-long event has been high­light­ing indus­try, invest­ment, inter­a­gency, and inter­na­tion­al inno­va­tors, as well as those dis­rupters across the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force.

Offi­cials from the Air Force Research Lab­o­ra­to­ry (AFRL), Day­ton Devel­op­ment Coali­tion (DDC), Job­sO­hio and the City of Spring­field will also be in atten­dance at the event, which will be streamed live from 12.30pm ET at http://www.af.mil/live

Both Joby and Beta announced their inten­tion to estab­lish a pres­ence in Ohio ear­li­er this year, as they push for­ward with their Agili­ty Prime cam­paign with the U.S. Air Force.

Launched ear­li­er this year, Agili­ty Prime seeks to accel­er­ate the com­mer­cial mar­ket for eVTOL air­craft and the two com­pa­nies have already pro­gressed to Phase III of the Ini­tial Capa­bil­i­ties Open­ing as part of Agili­ty Prime’s ‘Air Race to Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion’.

Tom Franzen, City of Spring­field­’s Assis­tant City Man­ag­er, said: “The Spring­field-Beck­ley Munic­i­pal Air­port is proud to be part of the ecosys­tem of unmanned aer­i­al sys­tems research and test­ing in Ohio.

“Home to the Ohio UAS Cen­ter and SkyVi­sion, a BVLOS range oper­at­ed in part­ner­ship with ARFL and state of Ohio, Spring­field-Beck­ley is excit­ed to sup­port Joby Avi­a­tion and Beta Tech­nolo­gies in the place­ment of their advanced flight sim­u­la­tors at the air­port.

“The airport’s prox­im­i­ty to Wright Pat­ter­son AFB and the Day­ton region’s aero­space indus­try allows for easy access for the company’s cus­tomers and U.S. Air Force part­ners.”

The sim­u­la­tors will allow pilots to gain expe­ri­ence in a con­trolled envi­ron­ment and Springfield’s air­space has been approved for test­ing beyond visu­al line of sight (BVLOS) capa­bil­i­ties for unmanned air­craft.
 
The air­space also con­ducts pio­neer­ing work into how to inte­grate unmanned sys­tems into the Nation­al Air­space Sys­tem, a crit­i­cal aspect of devel­op­ing air taxi tech­nol­o­gy.

Ohio’s work in devel­op­ing research capa­bil­i­ties for unmanned aer­i­al sys­tems makes it an ide­al place for Agili­ty Prime con­trac­tors to estab­lish oper­a­tions.

Advanced tech­nol­o­gy to sup­port test­ing, research and man­u­fac­tur­ing, a strong net­work of col­lab­o­ra­tive part­ners, and prox­im­i­ty to lead­ing insti­tu­tions and tal­ent­ed work­force com­bine to cre­ate a strong ecosys­tem to sup­port air taxis.

Jeff Hoagland, Pres­i­dent and CEO of DDC, added: “The advanced urban air mobil­i­ty sim­u­la­tor facil­i­ty and charg­ing sta­tions mark the begin­ning of a new era for Spring­field and Ohio. As we look to the skies for new ways to trav­el, Ohio will once again be on the lead­ing edge of aero­space research and devel­op­ment.

“We hope the inno­va­tors of advanced air mobil­i­ty sys­tems will join Joby and Beta in Spring­field to lever­age our region’s rich ecosys­tem for aero­space research, test­ing, and man­u­fac­tur­ing.”

Brig. Gen. Heather L. Pringle, AFRL com­man­der, added: “Agili­ty Prime is an excit­ing oppor­tu­ni­ty for the Air Force to engage with indus­try and learn about the dif­fi­cult task of devel­op­ing elec­tric air taxis.

“It also paves the way for AFRL and the Ohio Com­mu­ni­ty to advance the sci­ence and bet­ter under­stand an inno­v­a­tive capa­bil­i­ty with both mil­i­tary and com­mer­cial ben­e­fits.”

To reg­is­ter and learn more about AFWERX Accel­er­ate, vis­it, www.afwerx.com.