24/03/2024
6 Things the State of Illinois Needs to Do to Advance AAM
The 'Land of Lincoln charts a course toward Advanced Air Mobillity
Home to nearly 9,000,000 people, metropolitan Chicago is, theoretically, an urban air mobility (UAM air taxi operator's dream. Or at least it would be, were it not for Chicago's brutally cold winters. Winter temperatures average at, or just above freezing during the day and considerably colder at night. And, then, there's the wind. In case you didn't know, Chicago's nickname is The Windy City.
But Illinois is much more than an urban hub. With approximately 27 million acres of farmland (about 10 million hectares), much of Illinois is rural. That makes it prime territory for drones to spray and inspect crops.
Researchers at Northwestern University, in conjunction with the Illinois Center for Transportation, recently conducted a SWOT-type (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (analysis of how Illinois can best prepare for this next iteration of mobility. In their paper, "Advancing Air Mobility in Illinois, the researchers determined six tasks lay before them:
1. Examination of the current and projected state of the AAM industry, including pertinent regulations, technology advancements, and key industry players.
2. Identifying the potential scale, operational profiles, and safety considerations of AAM within Illinois.
3. Addressing the diverse geographic and operational environments across the state, encompassing urban, suburban, rural, intra-regional, and inter-regional areas, as well as congested and uncongested airspace.
4. To explore how AAM may influence Illinois' overall transporation systems, including surface and aviation components. The surface transportation system aspect involves investigating potential vehicular traffic impacts, shifts, and reductions, while the aviation system aspect includes assessing the interaction with unmanned aircraft systems, helicopters, and low-level traffic as well as airport access and routing considerations.
5. Enabling infrastructure and facility requirements, such as communication, surface transportation access, landing facilities, power and fuel availability, and utilities within state-level policy and regulatory recommendations and how they align with federal and state statutes in the Illinois Aviation System Plan.
6. Conducting a high-level assessment of potential impacts, encompassing economic, social, and environmental impacts.
For a more detailed view of the report, visit AeroCarJournal.com today.
