Volatus Infrastructure has agreed to build a public-use, FAA-compliant electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) vertiport at the privately owned, public-use Bellefonte (Pennsylvania) Airport (KN96) that serves the State College area, including the Penn State University campus. The vertiport—which eventually could have up to eight landing pads, each with a charging station—is expected to be operational later this year. It will initially operate as a single landing pad with one accompanying charging station.
“A project that started out as a way to get fans to Penn State games without sitting in traffic on Interstate 80 and State Route 322 has turned into what will become the center of an eVTOL ecosystem for the East Coast,” said Grant Fisk, Volatus Infrastructure co-founder. “We realized that Bellefonte Airport is within 90 miles of all the major cities, so it just makes sense to expand this location, which will lay the foundation for the eVTOL infrastructure ecosystem for the East Coast.” The airport is owned and operated by Marina Elnitski and sits on land that was one of the first U.S. airmail stops nearly a century ago.
According to Volatus, its modular design vertiports are scalable. The Neenah, Wisconsin-based company offers three main eVTOL infrastructure designs, including a vehicle-agnostic charging station, in addition to a dedicated app and maintenance programs.