Electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft are a typical representative of new types of airspace users, characterised as innovative air mobility (IAM), which aims to complement existing means of passengers and cargo transport targeting primarily urban and regional operations. These new vehicles, operating typically below 10.000 ft altitude, aim to support in economic and sustainable way a large variety of existing and new use cases, with potential need to access most types of airspaces including U-space. 

This solution aims to facilitate the initial deployment of manned (meaning with a pilot onboard) eVTOL operations in different types of airspace (controlled, uncontrolled and U-space) through development of a compatible block of operational (procedures, requirements, services) and technical enablers, and by their validation in laboratory and real environment conditions. For this purpose, two specific business use cases are implemented in two different European locations: regional transport in Spain flown with Lilium Jet and airport feeder use case operated by Vertical Aerospace VX4 aircraft in the UK. 

For fast and smooth introduction of the initial eVTOL flights into ATM and U-space, the solution starts from existing procedures used for helicopter operations. It is however envisioned that under these conditions expected benefits in terms of airspace capacity, access and equity, operational flexibility, environmental impact, or cost efficiency cannot be achieved. The solution therefore dives into extension/adaptation of those existing procedures to facilitate eVTOL operations under visual flight rules, and at the same time to address the key operational and technological limitations blocking transition towards all weather (and instrument flight rules) operations or further reduction of operational costs (e.g., through automation).

Design and development of the above elements/enablers is completed with their extensive validations, both addressing different elements separately and through validation of the targeted eVTOL flights. For this purpose, a large spectrum of validation methods is used covering operational workshops, lab testing, fast and real time simulation, up to experimental flights in real environment. 

Described activities together with direct involvement of main stakeholders across the whole process are key catalysts for an initial deployment of IAM operations and their future scaling which is the main objective of the solution.