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Relatively simple changes to procedures could allow some busy Class B airports to accommodate 40 to 55 urban air mobility operations per hour without negatively impacting existing traffic flows or overwhelming air traffic controllers, according to a new paper from researchers at NASA and Joby Aviation.
The paper offers granular detail on a series of simulations conducted at Future Flight Central, a high-fidelity virtual air traffic control facility at NASA Ames Research Center in California. Joby and NASA announced completion of the simulations in December and the results were presented at the AIAA Aviation Forum in Las Vegas, Nevada last month.
Related: Today’s airspace can handle eVTOLs — but not too many of them
The research reinforces the argument made by Joby and others that piloted electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft operating under visual flight rules will not need specialized air traffic management systems in their first years of operations. Both supply and demand constraints make it unlikely that eVTOL transfers at any one airport will bump up against 55 per hour anytime soon — at least in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex where the simulations took place.
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