Challenge Aims To Name Urban Air Mobility Vehicles, Pilots

Varon Vehicles and Flight Crowd are challenging all comers to brainstorm suitable and long-lasting names for urban air mobility (UAM) elements, starting with the vehicles and their operators. The Urban Air Mobility Names Challenge is “a call for anyone to propose the best new names for key elements of Urban Air Mobility for which names have not yet been widely adopted,” according to Varon.

Varon is working on plans to provide UAM services in South America and earlier this year announced that it plans to develop a network of vertiport facilities. New names for UAM elements are needed, according to the company, because they “generate industrial cohesion, understanding, and orient public imagination in the same direction.” UAM names should “become universal and…stick in perpetuity” and will be as ubiquitous as “airplane” or “automobile.”

Anyone is welcome to enter the challenge to name the UAM vehicles that are proposed to carry future travelers and for those that will carry pilots, their onboard operators. There is no end date to the challenge and it will be open until a winner is selected. Once announced, Varon will publicize the winning names and encourage widespread adoption by the UAM industry and the public.

Varon will publish the name of the winner and give the winner a recognition certificate, and the winning names will be added to Flight Crowd’s UAM Glossary. Flight Crowd will also help evaluate the proposed names submitted by challenge participants, by “determining eligibility, pre-selection, and background of proposed names.”