Would you trade bridge traffic for a 10-minute flight across Tampa Bay?<\/p>\n
That scenario may not be as far off as it sounds. Companies around the world are racing to launch electric \u201cair taxis,\u201d and St. Pete could eventually be part of that conversation.<\/p>\n
More than a century after the world\u2019s first commercial airline flight lifted off from the downtown waterfront, city leaders are exploring how the next evolution of aviation could take shape at Albert Whitted Airport<\/a> in downtown St. Pete.<\/p>\n After nine months of meetings, the City of St. Pete\u2019s Advanced Air Mobility Task Force<\/a> released its final recommendations on how the city can prepare for Advanced Air Mobility (AAM), which is the use of electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft known as eVTOLs, or \u201cair taxis\u201d.<\/p>\n Think of it as Uber or Lyft, but in the air.<\/p>\n Unlike traditional helicopters, eVTOLs are battery-powered, quieter, and designed for lower operating costs. <\/p>\n According to the task force report<\/a>, most leading AAM aircraft under development will carry between two and six passengers, fly between 60 and 200 miles, and operate at altitudes between 500 and 3,000 feet.<\/p>\n The first eVTOL aircraft are expected to receive FAA certification within the next one to two years.<\/p>\n Proposed routes could link Albert Whitted Airport with St. Petersburg\u2019s downtown waterfront and extend to regional destinations such as Tampa International Airport<\/a> and SunTrax in Lakeland<\/a>, the future home of the nation\u2019s first Advanced Air Mobility testing center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Would you trade bridge traffic for a 10-minute flight across Tampa Bay? That scenario may not be as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":162777,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-162776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=162776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}