Industry, government and regulators are raising their game as Paris prepares to operate a commercial eVTOL service during next year’s Summer Olympic Games
ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY
Ambition is being tempered with pragmatism as a consortium of businesses, national and regional state agencies, and regulatory authorities progress toward their goal of operating a commercial eVTOL (electric vertical-takeoff-and-landing) air taxi service in Paris during the 2024 Summer Olympics. The effort is attracting headlines and driving public awareness of the emerging AAM (advanced air mobility) sector in Europe, but its partners are aware that successful implementation of the project will just be the first step on a much longer journey to see the promise of AAM transition from an enticing concept to a socially beneficial reality. It might be an exaggeration to suggest that this new industry’s hopes depend on a successful Paris debut, but perhaps not a huge one.
The broad brushstrokes of the Paris plan are now clear. A network of five operating locations will host Volocopter’s VoloCity multi-rotor eVTOL aircraft, which will be flown by a pilot on board and, for the purposes of the Olympics campaign, will be able to carry one passenger. The nodes of the network will connect existing airports and heliports on the outskirts of the city with a new, bespoke vertiport in the center. The project partners hope to operate up to 10 VoloCity aircraft during the games, with each aircraft capable of performing two or three flights per hour.
Compared to the scope that companies in the sector hope will be the eventual shape of commercial AAM operations, the program is modest, but the work required to deliver even this limited service is extensive. The challenges facing the project’s participants include:
Airspace regulations and air traffic control issues
Power requirements and charging equipment availability
The footprint of vertiports and land availability
Noise concerns and public acceptance considerations
Safety of operations in the event of an equipment failure on board or other emergencies in congested urban airspace.
Work to answer these questions —indeed, in some cases to figure out what those questions are—has been taking place at Pontoise Aerodrome, approximately 40 km (25 mi.) northwest of Paris, where local and regional authorities have established an AAM Sandbox to help businesses develop the technology. BCA was present during several flight trials and media/public-engagement events held there in 2022 and has had the chance to observe how preparations for the Olympics service are progressing.
Measuring AcousticsIn March 2022, the Pontoise Sandbox hosted a series of flights to measure the acoustic signature of Volocopter’s 2X prototype. The aircraft is still the only eVTOL platform that has regulatory approval to fly in France, and while it is smaller than the VoloCity that will fly during the Olympics, its noise emissions are expected to be similar enough for the data to be useful. Collection and measurement equipment—some 25 microphones and vibration sensors, placed on airport buildings, on the ground and on pylons—was deployed at the airfield by the RATP, the mass transit agency for the Paris region, which is charged with measuring the noise impacts of other forms of urban transport and so is highly experienced in collecting, analyzing and understanding such data sets.
The 2X demonstrator hovers above the Pontoise vertiport, while a Socata TB20, operated by ENAC, the French national civil aviation school, lands on the runway behind a full-size model of the VoloCity. Credit: Angus Batey/Aviation Week
“We want to know exactly what the acoustic impacts are of different operations of the eVTOL, and measure the noise at different distances,” says Joran Le Nabat, an acoustic engineer with RATP. “These measurements will help us make models afterwards. There are different types of modelization [model-building]: modelization at the scale of the territory, modelization at the scale of the neighborhood, modelization at the scale of the vehicle.
For each, the modelization and the type of software is completely different, because it’s more complex to understand at shorter distances,” he continues. “Right now, there’s no software to explain and identify the [noise] impact at the micro scale.”
The 2022 acoustic-signature flight campaign, Le Nabat says, will allow RATP to model the macro noise impacts, and enable the creation of territory-scale maps showing what sonic impact the 2X would have during a flight over the proposed routes in Paris. Once the VoloCity is certified to fly at the Sandbox—hopefully by the summer of 2023—further measurements can be taken that will validate the models created from the 2X flights and confirm the predictions for noise impacts of flights over the city. Even then, however, the job will not be complete.
“It’s very important to quantify and to know exactly what are the best criteria in acoustics to define the [acoustic signature] of the eVTOL and to quantify the real perception,” Le Nabat says. “What’s the best speed, the best altitude, to decrease the impact? If RATP says, ‘OK, we will make vertiports in the Seine, close to Gare d’Austerlitz or Gare de Lyon [two of the main railroad stations in Paris], we have to know how to decrease these impacts of acoustics and vibration. We also want to predict exactly how the public will perceive the differences. It’s not just, ‘You have [a reading of] 65 dBA close to your apartment—that’s OK, because they standards say it’s OK.’ We need to know exactly how they will perceive [different noise levels] during different operations.”
Setting Up Ops In November, the Sandbox opened a testbed vertiport to demonstrate, validate, rehearse and refine pre-boarding processes for passengers and ground operations for aircraft. The facility, a collaboration between French airport operator Groupe ADP and British-based vertiport developer Skyports, includes biometric systems, ticket gates and a coffee lounge/waiting area.
Paul Stone flies the Volocopter 2X close to an array of acoustic sensors during the noise-test campaign at Pontoise in March 2022. Credit: Angus Batey/Aviation Week
The design of the FATO (final approach and takeoff area), which is part of the vertiport development program, is equally important. This aspect of the work is already looking well beyond the Olympics project.
“We want to accommodate all types of aircraft,” says Edward Russell, Skyports’ development manager for the EMEA region. “The aim of the vertiport is to be completely agnostic to all the mainstream carriers. The main critical part to the stand, or the FATO, is how wide the rotors are going to be. That, however, will ultimately be constrained by where you are. If you find yourself, say, in central London, space will be restricted, so we’ll have to accommodate and make a commercial decision on that.”
Skyports is not formally part of the Paris project itself, but it is indirectly involved both via the Sandbox and because Groupe ADP is one of its major shareholders. The proposed Olympics flight map links Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports, and the heliport at Issy-Les-Moulineaux, inside the city, with the suburban facility at Saint-Cyr—sites already operated by Groupe ADP. The fifth proposed site is new: a vertiport to be built on a pontoon moored on the Seine near the Austerlitz rail station in the center of the city. That project is being led by RATP, but experience and data from the vertiport at the Pontoise Sandbox will inform its design, construction and operation.
“We work very closely [with Groupe ADP] on the testbed and on other aspects of vertiport operations, whether that’s vertiport designs or the digital enabling systems for the passenger journey,” Damian Kysely, head of infrastructure for the EMEA region at Skyports, tells BCA. “That includes scheduling and management systems that allow us to allocate resources to turn around the aircraft; situational awareness to understand what’s happening at and around the vertiport; weather; noise data; all that we need to understand what’s happening and how to operate it.”
RATP’s innovation division, RATP Dev, has established a limited driverless ground transportation shuttle service that connects various locations around the Bois de Vincennes park in Paris. The company is considering implementing a similar service to connect the Austerlitz rail station with Gare du Lyon, on the opposite bank of the river Seine. Le Nabat says the company sees eVTOL as another means for the company to connect transport hubs that presently lack a direct link, with urban vertiports a necessary part of its vision for future urban transport connectivity.
“There’s no transport between Gare d’Austerlitz and Gare de Lyon, so that’s why we’re making [a driverless mobility link],” he says. “The vertiport is [part of] the same thing. We want to have multiple services, so that when you arrive at Gare d’Austerlitz, for example, you can take the Metro, the railway, the eVTOL, and it’s a multi-modal service.”
Plans for the Austerlitz pontoon vertiport, and for the deployment of other vertiport infrastructure across the five Paris sites, remain aspirations, with Groupe ADP publicly stating that “administrative procedures are underway” to establish the five sites. In the meantime, work is ongoing to ensure that the Volocopter aircraft will be able to access the floating vertiport as easily as it can the established airfield locations.“It’s very easy and quick for us to drop a simulated pontoon into the simulator and be flying approaches to do that first cut of, does it hang together? Is it going to be straightforward enough?” says Paul Stone, Volocopter’s chief test pilot. “Approaching from over the water onto the pontoon actually is pretty straightforward.”
Although not contracted to deliver the floating Austerlitz vertiport, Skyports is well-placed to assess the practicalities the proposed solution may be able to take advantage of, as well as the challenges developers may have to address. The company has acquired the former Falcon Heliport in London, which it is continuing to operate as a conventional heliport while investigating technologies and processes that will be applicable to riverside vertiports.
“Usage of existing waterways like the Seine makes sense,” Kysely says. “It can be an expensive solution because you’re building above water, but there is existing precedent. In many cities, including Paris and London, that’s the only viable solution in the very center, given the unavailability of land.”
One challenge vertiport developers need to solve—ensuring sufficient power supply is available to recharge the aircraft—may not be a difficult issue for the Olympics operations, given the characteristics of the VoloCity, which does not have to be plugged in directly. The aircraft’s battery packs are removable, so charging can take place on shore, with the recharged units brought to the aircraft as needed.
“I don’t have intimate knowledge of the exact designs RATP is working on [for the Austerlitz vertiport],” Kysely says, “but with battery swap you don’t need high voltage or high power. It’s slow charging, like charging a car battery, effectively.”
He points out that for projects involving other eVTOL platforms with longer flight duration times, certain city-center locations may not require any charging infrastructure at all.
“For aircraft like Joby or others, their range is well over 200 km, so they may not even want to charge in certain locations where they’re doing quick-turnaround flights,” Kysely says. “For single-pad locations, you can’t loiter around for an hour—you need to get in and out, because you’re blocking the availability of the vertiport.”
Instead, he suggests, the challenges facing operators of river-based vertiports come from other directions.
“When we’ve looked at other river sites—not specifically the one in Paris—what’s often an issue is river traffic—moving targets [such as barges], moving obstacles around it, tides which mean you can’t really have a floating structure if there’s high tide movement in the river,” he says. “The most complex challenge is the environmental impact assessment, which relates to all parts of the operation—from noise, potential pollution in case of accidents, what the battery is going to do if it falls into the water. Those are key concerns—and then cost, ultimately: it’s not cheap.”
During another Sandbox event, held in September 2022 under the auspices of the European Union-sponsored CORUS-XUAM program, the 2X and a Pipistrel Velis Electro electrically powered light aircraft demonstrated deconfliction and cooperation in a scenario where a diversion on final approach was required. One element of eVTOL operations that the Olympics consortium is having to carefully look at is the scenario in which the Volocopter needs to hold its position while airborne if an airspace issue prevents access to the landing site. The aircraft has limited power reserves, and priorities may need to be changed should air traffic controllers need to revise plans in response to emergency situations.
Flight CorridorsThe limits of onboard power are just one way in which eVTOLs differ from traditional helicopters. Yet the Olympics project will utilize existing helicopter flight corridors, and, in four of the five operating locations, existing helicopter ground infrastructure as well. As a first step to introduce the new technology to the operating environment, this makes perfect sense: as Skyports’ Kysely says, the project team needs to learn to walk before it can start to think about running.
The Pontoise Sandbox vertiport, with a model of the VoloCity, emerges from the morning mist. Credit: Angus Batey/Aviation Week
Yet there are also risks to taking this “pragmatic” path. Having eVTOL platforms limited to operating solely within traditional rotorcraft locations and flight corridors “is exactly what you want to avoid,” says Jorn Jaeger, Volocopter’s head of airspace and vertiports. “We’ve started [in helicopter airspace] because it is giving confidence to the authorities that we can manage it. But definitely we want to get away from it.”
“That’s the essential part of the puzzle,” says Kysely. “For Paris, we at Skyports believe it’s the right thing, but it’s why we’re focused on what happens after 2024. It’s the hardest task. If we are stuck with only operating between existing aerodromes, [eVTOL will become] a replacement for helicopters. If we manage to prove the assumptions of eVTOL it will be a better replacement, because it will be quieter, non-polluting and cheaper, but it will still be confined to the operations of existing aircraft. If those assumptions are proven, I believe it will be easier for us to then start expanding the envelope and the network to use cases that really make sense.”
While the Sandbox vertiport is providing experience the Olympics flight campaign will be built on, it is what happens after Paris 2024 that will determine the success—or future—of the whole AAM/eVTOL concept.
“The connectivity between Paris airports is great, but probably doesn’t cover the best use cases for eVTOLs,” Kysely says. “I’m sure there’s demand between certain locations like Versailles, and Issy-Les-Moulineaux. But the driver of demand will probably be city center or other locations to airports, through airport shuttles rather than driving just between airports. So that’s what we’re focused on. Naturally, that’s a lot harder, because—as with the Austerlitz potential vertiport—you’re operating in a non-aviation environment and you have to go through the entire planning phases. It’s a long process, but it’s similar in every other market we’re in. It’s about finding the perfect site and then starting with one or two, proving the model, and then once the social license is established, it will get easier for us as the non-airport vertiport developer to focus on progress.”
—A freelance journalist based in the UK, Angus Batey has been a frequent contributor to the Aviation Week group since 2009.
