[Peetwo]

Su_Spence drops GA workplan priority in favour of eVTOL dreamtime?? - FFS! 

Via latest Su_Spence (bollocks) CASA Briefing missive:

Director of Aviation Safety, Pip Spence

The futuristic lines of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are an obvious focal point for the popular narrative around 'air taxis' and advanced air mobility.

But equally important is the infrastructure that will support these impressive pieces of modern technology when they start arriving in Australia in the next few years.

You can't have a flying taxi service until you have the 'vertiports' at which eVTOLs can safely land and take off.

Australia is part of the global effort to introduce this exciting new technology and we see industry collaboration as a key to its successful implementation.

A CASA team with extensive aerodrome experience has set the ball rolling by examining what vertiports could look like, where and how they might operate as well as the safety requirements governing their design and operation.

Within a month, we expect to release Australia's first draft advisory circular on the design of vertiports on our consultation hub.

The circular is a concrete example of our new Remotely Piloted Aircraft System RPAS and Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) Strategic Regulatory Roadmap in action and is in keeping with the Australian government's National Emerging Aviation Technologies (NEAT) policy.

We also believe we’re one of the first regulators outside of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to provide this kind of advice.

This a complex issue and we’re allowing 3 months of consultation so everybody can get their heads around the concepts. We're keen to hear what the industry thinks.

We want industry working with us from the start of this process so this feedback will also go to a proposed vertiport design and operations technical working group (TWG) that the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel is considering establishing.

This is a different way of using a TWG and means the group will help us establish our regulatory framework for AAM infrastructure rather than presenting it with a proposal and hashing out the details.

This is in line with our approach with the RPAS and AAM roadmap.

In that case, we began with a technical working group of 13 industry participants followed by sub-working groups that included a total of 73 participants, two-thirds of whom came from the RPAS and AAM sectors.

The success of the approach was underscored by the positive response the draft version of the roadmap received after its release for public consultation.

Our plan is to take what the European and US regulators have done a step further by making the design of vertiports performance based.

This will put the onus on vertiport operators to understand how the aircraft they intend to support is likely to affect the design of a facility.

There will not be just one flavour of vertiport but an array of designs in a range of circumstances.

Obviously, CASA’s safety requirements will not be the only factor to influence where a vertiport will be located and how it will operate.

Land use requirements by governments and other considerations outside our remit, such as noise and environmental impacts, will also come into play.

We need to move now because the new technology will be with us sooner than many people think.

eVTOL test fights are already underway overseas with some companies expecting to start operations in the next 2 to 3 years.

The FAA and EASA recently published design guidelines for vertiports and several concepts have already emerged in Europe.

Europe’s Volocopter, for example, conducted its first flight test using a crewed eVTOL launched early last month from a vertiport at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport.

Aeroporti di Roma wants to launch commercial operations by 2024.

Joby Aviation is also well progressed in the US certification process and Embraer offshoot Eve, which has already signed agreements with Australian companies, will not be far behind.

We achieved an Australian first earlier this year when we announced with the FAA and Swoop Aero that we were collaborating on the joint type and production certification of Swoop’s latest drone, the Kite.

We’ve been in discussions with Joby and we’re keenly interested in moves by companies such as AMSL Aero that can develop home-grown eVTOL aircraft.

Also on our radar are plans by Australian carriers Rex and Skytrans to retrofit aircraft with electric or hybrid-electric propulsion.

Our collaboration with other Australian agencies about advanced air mobility includes our 2021 memorandum of understanding with the Commonwealth Department of Infrastructure, Airservices Australia and the Victorian government to support the sector.

Vertiports are another example of how CASA is tackling the future of aviation.

As CASA Chair Mark Binskin noted in his recent P. G. Taylor address at Safeskies, the changes hurtling towards us mean CASA must think broadly, embrace innovation and be flexible.

All the best,

Pip

Plus via the Yaffa: 

CASA tackles Vertiport Issues

2 November 2022



The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has outlined the steps it is taking to prepare for the inevitable rise of vertiports.
Vertiports cater for high traffic volumes of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft used in advanced air mobility (AAM) operations, but the infrastructure planning is still in its infancy, which is presenting challenges to regulators around the world.

Director of Aviation Safety and CEO Pip Spence says CASA will be working with the aviation and urban mobility industries to develop regulation for Australia.

"You can't have a flying taxi service until you have the vertiports at which eVTOLs can safely land and take off," she said in the November 2022 CASA Briefing Newsletter.

"Australia is part of the global effort to introduce this exciting new technology and we see industry collaboration as a key to its successful implementation.

"A CASA team with extensive aerodrome experience has set the ball rolling by examining what vertiports could look like, where and how they might operate as well as the safety requirements governing their design and operation.

"Within a month, we expect to release Australia's first draft advisory circular on the design of vertiports on our consultation hub."

Spence also said that CASA was considering setting up a vertiport technical working group (TWG) to provide advice on regulation.

"We want industry working with us from the start of this process so this feedback will also go to a proposed vertiport design and operations technical working group (TWG) that the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel is considering establishing," she said.

"This is a different way of using a TWG and means the group will help us establish our regulatory framework for AAM infrastructure rather than presenting it with a proposal and hashing out the details."

Spence said CASA's approach would be to expand on the work done by European and US regulators by taking into account the performance of the aircraft and government regulations over the use of land, noise and environmental impacts.

eVTOL testing is well underway overseas at the moment and the first aircraft are expected to enter service around 2025.

MTF...P2