Flying taxi takes off, inaugurated Vertiport of Fiumicino

This morning at 9.56 at Fiumicino airport the first flight test of an eVtol was carried out

The flying taxi makes its debut, the electric helicopter that from 2024 will connect Fiumicino airport with Rome. This morning at 9.56 at Fiumicino airport the first flight test of an eVtol equipped by activating in addition the first vertiport ever built in the countrytogether with the Volocopter’s VoloIQ digital platform. It is the first time that this type of test has been carried out in Italian airspace. This first flight was carried out by Aeroporti di Roma, Volocopter, UrbanV and Atlantia. Today’s test was carried out one year after the presentation of the first eVtol prototype in Italy. In the last twelve months, significant progress has been made in terms of flight technologies, the design of vertical ports and the regulations necessary to allow the first Advanced Air Mobility services between Fiumicino airport and the city of Rome to “stand out. flight “by 2024.



The Volocopter test pilot, aboard the Volocopter 2X electric helicopter, flew at 40 km / h for 5 minutes at a height of 40 metersperforming an “8-man flight trajectory in front of the spectators, after having obtained all the necessary authorizations from the competent Italian authorities, the National Agency for Civil Aviation and the National Agency for Flight Assistance, which are playing a role central in defining the future Aam ecosystem.

Volocopter’s electric air taxi was designed for enable passengers to fly fast and emission-free in urban environments, both on particularly busy land routes, and over water flows. The characteristics of the aerotaxy reflect the will of Atlantia and Aeroporti di Roma to play a pioneering role in making urban mobility practicable and accessible to the public.

The vertiport was developed in compliance with Easa technical specifications (ie, “Prototype Technical Specifications for the Design of VFR Vertiports for Operation with Manned Vtol-Capable Aircraft Certified in the Enhanced Category”) and is located within a “sandbox “Regulation approved by ENAC. It has been designed to accommodate various types of tests both for flight and for ground operations (turnaround, battery charging, etc.), with an electrical system designed and built to allow the running in of various eVTOL charging technologies (exchange of batteries, fast charging, etc.). The infrastructure, which occupies an area of ​​approximately 5,500 square meters, has been designed to ensure compatibility with the main eVTOLs that will be certified in the coming years and consists of a final approach and take-off area (FATO) for landing and take-off operations, a lay-by, a covered hangar measuring 20 x 20 meters and about 6 meters high and various rooms, including a office, a warehouse and an area for recharging the batteries.

This morning’s flight was followed by a presentation of the vertiport, organized by UrbanV – a company founded by Adr, together with Aeroports de la Cote d’Azur, Venice Airport (Save) and Bologna Guglielmo Marconi Airport – to design and build vertiporti internationally. During the presentation, another dimension of Aam’s future services was explored, namely VoloIQ. This digital platform is the hub of the urban / advanced air mobility ecosystem, which supports digital access to all work processes: from flight operations to booking, VoloIQ will support and optimize the development of Uam / Aam operations in the cities of Worldwide.



Source-www.adnkronos.com