Watch Video: “Skyportz Releases Downwash/Outwash Reduction Model Film”
Australia-based Skyportz, a leading vertipad patent developer, has released an animation film that demonstrates the positive impacts its patent will have on reducing the down/outwash from eVTOL aircraft when taking off or landing at vertiports, reports a press release.
For the company’s modular vertipad patent addresses one of the standout issues for Advanced Air Mobility in urban locations: The reduction of downwash and outwash caused by the craft.
This issue has been highlighted by the FAA in January in their Engineering Brief 105A where the FAA indicated that vertipads will need to have a wind safety zone beyond the landing surface. Almost every other air safety regulator in the world has similarly highlighted this issue.
The film “compares the windspeed of an eVTOL landing on a tarmac with that of the patented vertipad surface. The latter deflects and breaks up the powerful vortices that are dangerous in urban settings,” says the release. “The vertipad also entrains the air to recirculate, reducing the power of the outwash.”
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Clem Newton-Brown, Skyportz CEO, explained, “Our patent has some very real applications as cities move to establishing vertiport networks outside of existing airports and helipads. This technology reduces the outwash speed two and a half times faster than landing on a tarmac. It means that with our vertipad you can safely use less land or fit more pads on to smaller sites.”
International air regulators and future air taxi and vertiport operators have expressed an interest in the Skyportz patent, which may eventually be available in emerging global markets under licence.
The company states it aims to break the nexus between aviation and airports and enable commercial and industrial property developers to host vertiports.
Newton-Brown continued, “The vertiport infrastructure is the missing piece of the puzzle for this industry. Without a multitude of new vertipad landing sites in places people want to go, the aircraft will never fulfil their potential.” Adding, “The Skyportz vertipad patent provides the solution.”
The company released its patent at the Avalon International Airshow in Australia in March, taking home the “Blue Sky” innovation award.
Professor Justin Leontini
Professor Justin Leontini from the Swinburne University of Technology AirHub in Australia, has been carrying out the CFD modelling and is to trial further improvements.
The initial modelling conducted by the University has experimented with different landing surface treatments described in the patent.
Professor Leontini who has over 20 years experience of applying ‘fundamental flow physics’ remarked, “Our next step will involve adding different surface treatments and mechanical devices detailed in the patent under and around the vertipad, which we expect will induce a Magnus effect and dissipate energy at an even higher rate, while directing flows to desired zones away from waiting passengers.”
The Skyportz vertipad is protected by the global Patent Cooperation Treaty protection and the national phase of the patent has commenced already in Australia, USA and China.
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(Top image: Skyportz)
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