Flying cars, or electric aircraft designed to take off and land vertically, could soon be tested in Florida skies, and Tallahassee officials say the capital city is still positioned to be part of the state\u2019s plans even after rejecting a major airport development proposal earlier this year.<\/p>\n
In April, the city turned down a $60 million airport development proposal that included an optional landing site for air taxis. Tallahassee International Airport Aviation Director David Pollard said the air-taxi component was not the reason the proposal was rejected.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe developer had some requirements of the city with respect to investment by the city,\u201d Pollard said. \u201cWe were working towards a third-party developer that could fund, design and do it all turnkey. So that didn\u2019t quite shape out the way that we had hoped for it to.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Florida is moving forward with the technology. Gov. Ron DeSantis said electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, known as eVTOLs, could begin testing in Central Florida by the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd now I\u2019m proud to announce that by the end of the year, Florida will be actively testing eVTOL aircraft throughout Central Florida\u2019s aerospace region,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cThey\u2019re going to lift off and they\u2019re going to fly and they\u2019re going to land and they\u2019re going to be able to bring people to different places and then come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
DeSantis also said the state is building the infrastructure needed to support advanced air mobility, including vertiports, which are landing and takeoff sites for the aircraft.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year, I signed legislation recognizing advanced air mobility as an official mode of transportation in the state of Florida,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cAnd we have moved from establishing that framework to actually building the infrastructure right here at SunTrax to be able to test this technology.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pollard said Tallahassee International Airport is included in Florida\u2019s planned aerial highway network. He also said the city is not abandoning airport development plans, and a new request for proposals focused solely on a hotel could be issued within the next 30 to 60 days.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re on the leading edge of this, working in close cooperation with the state of Florida and other partners as we plan to develop and design the future of aviation and the opportunities that advanced air mobility and electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft will provide to the customers in the future,\u201d Pollard said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Flying cars, or electric aircraft designed to take off and land vertically, could soon be tested in Florida…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-369694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369694","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=369694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}