Flying taxis may sound like a fantasy from a different universe, but it’s no joke. <\/p>\n
The U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration recently announced the Advanced Air Mobility and eVTOL Integration Pilot Program. <\/p>\n
The goal is to speed up new aircraft technology in the country \u2014 with Florida being one of the lead states for these pilot programs. <\/p>\n
According to the DOT, Florida is involved in a “statewide effort featuring multiple industry partners will include three phases of operations focused on cargo delivery, passenger transportation, automation, and medical response, supported by significant public and private investment.” <\/p>\n
St. Petersburg has even formed its own task force to study these “taxis.” <\/p>\n
Albert Whitted Airport Manager Richard J. Lesniak leads the task force. On “Florida Matters Live & Local,” he discussed what these flying taxis could mean for public transportation and more. <\/p>\n
The interview below was edited for clarity and brevity. <\/p>\n
What is an eVTOL? <\/p>\n
It stands for electric vertical takeoff and landing. It’s kind of a new design in aircraft that it’s not new technologies, but it’s pulling from technologies that are already there. <\/p>\n
ALSO READ: Could electric air taxis be a solution to Florida’s traffic jams?<\/a><\/p>\n It kind of takes a little bit from the drone world. Actually takes a little bit from battery-powered electric motors, kind of thing, and then it takes kind of like from just general aviation design and kind of merges them to create a new aircraft design that flies sometimes like a helicopter \u2014 sometimes like a fixed-wing aircraft. <\/p>\n The new or initial versions of this will be piloted, and they’ll operate in airspace \u2014 no different than any other type of regular aircraft. But the longer-term version is that these become autonomous. <\/p>\n Why St. Pete? Why is this one of the airports you’re testing these platforms? <\/p>\n This got on the radar of our city council. <\/p>\n Ultimately, the mayor and our city council decided to form a task force. The task force spent about nine months evaluating the advanced air mobility and to see how it would be integrated \u2014 what the city should prepare for. <\/p>\n The state of Florida through FDOT has been probably seriously looking at this, I’d say, for the last three years. <\/p>\n ALSO READ: Where will eVTOLs land in St. Petersburg?<\/a><\/p>\n So, the city put this task force together and at the end of their process, they provided a list of recommendations on how the city should prepare itself for this and utilization of the Albert Whitted Airport, which we’re located, right in downtown St Pete, is being looked at as kind of the first step in that. <\/p>\n The advanced Air Mobility has slightly different applications for the technology, but I think the air taxi realm is what seems to capture most people’s thoughts about this. <\/p>\n And so where this concept or use makes the most sense is going to be in your bigger metropolitan areas. The technology right now, because it’s battery-powered, is somewhat limited range-wise. <\/p>\n So I think the thought is, initially, this is going to be like an intra-city type thing. So say, for example, you could have a route from Albert Whitted Airport to Tampa International Airport.<\/p>\n Are there rules about flying over water with these things? <\/p>\n Right now, they would have to meet the same rules as any general aviation aircraft that’s flying in the airspace. <\/p>\n They’ll operate just like a regular aircraft would. The only differences are just battery electric power, versus gas or jet fuel power. <\/p>\n “I don’t think by the end of this year, you’re going to see the sky full of air taxis. I think that’s still a little further down the road.”<\/p>\n Albert Whitted Airport Manager Richard J. Lesniak <\/p>\n How soon are we going to see these things buzzing around the city? <\/p>\n That’s kind of the million-dollar question. I think you alluded to the FAA’s pilot program; the state of Florida was selected. Florida DOT is going to lead that effort. And they established a test facility out of what’s called the SunTrax facility. It’s located in Auburndale. <\/p>\n They actually constructed a verte port, and they have plans to add a second verte port and a runway. And I think what they’re looking is to start kind of testing promotion on that site, and then kind of expanding out.<\/p>\n