The future of aviation: Urban Air Mobility (UAM) or how drones will be able to fly in the urban area!

This summer I went to the World ATM Congress 2022, an event with and about aviation. The future in aviation was discussed, sustainable aviation with low CO2 emissions, but also drones, autonomous and unmanned aircraft, how to scale the airspace and the concept of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) was also discussed. .

In recent years, articles about airplanes powered by electric motors, about drones that can carry passengers, about Air Taxi and many other such ideas and concepts of the future have appeared on the Airlinestravel.ro website.

The even more interesting part is that all these ideas and apparently concepts are already in an advanced stage of research and analysis. We do not rule out that the future in aviation will not be as we know it now. There will no longer be just commercial passenger planes, cargo planes and military planes. Other types of flying machines will also appear, such as drones, flying cars and more. And the airspace will be divided into several vertical and horizontal levels.

Boeing and Wisk have already presented the operational concept for urban air mobility. Autonomous and unmanned aircraft will be able to fly in urban and suburban areas to transport passengers. The stations will be "vertiports", specially designed areas for eVTOL / VTOL aircraft.

The operational concept begins by proposing basic principles for urban air mobility, including that flights should be safe and accessible for everyone. In addition, the aircraft will be automated to reduce the burden on air traffic controllers and pilots, thus being able to fly day and night under visual or instrument flight rules, and will be supported by automated systems on board and on the ground.

“This concept that we present today provides a cornerstone in the advancement of UAM in the US and the world”, said Gary Gysin, CEO of Wisk. For those who don't know, Wisk is working on a first prototype aircraft dedicated to air taxi services. Okay, it's not really the first because there's another concept to its name Lilium, which was announced before. And besides these there are dozens of other projects in Europe, USA, Asia, which proves to us that the future will belong to flying cars.

"The vision we have outlined is the result of many years of collaboration with Boeing, the FAA, NASA and key industry partners. As a result, this document provides the most comprehensive framework proposed to date with a vision for enabling UAM in national airspace. Wisk is committed to delivering, together with its partners, this visionGysin said.

And Airbus has a program Urban Air Mobility. Airbus estimates that by 2030, 60% of the world's population will be urban. This significant increase in the urban population is expected to create a real need for innovative mobility options as land infrastructure becomes increasingly congested and we feel it today in Bucharest, but also in the great capitals of the world. 

Basically, one solution would be for people to be able to travel by flying in the urban area. Like Boeing, Airbus is working in partnership with several companies to develop an eVTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft, also known as the CityAirbus NextGen. The future will be interesting!

Sci-fi movies will no longer be sci-fi!