Australian advanced air mobility (AAM) group Skyportz has released a concept for a waterfront vertiport and “e-mobility hub” that it hopes to build in Melbourne, Australia. Skyportz CEO Clem Newton-Brown presented the concept this week at the Airtaxi World Congress in San Francisco.
In addition to providing a place for electric air taxis to load and drop off passengers, the proposed vertiport would serve as a multimodal hub for a variety of electric transportation options, including electric bikes, scooters, ferries, and boats for hire.
Skyportz’s proposed vertiport would replace an existing waterfront helipad located on the Yarra River in Melbourne’s Batman Park. That helipad is currently operated by Microflite, a local helicopter operator that provides charter flights, aerial tours, and other aviation services with its fleet of 19 helicopters. Microflite is planning to electrify its fleet with the addition of new electric aircraft such as eVTOL air taxis.
“There is no doubt that helicopters will soon be phased out in tourism and short commuter flights, and Microflite wants to lead the way in decarbonizing aviation as soon as electric aircraft are certified for commercial use,” said Microflite chief operating officer Rod Higgins. “Of the many thousands of passengers and tourists that Microflite [flies] from its Melbourne Heliport each year, an increasing number are asking when the aviation industry will be progressing to sustainable operations.”
Newton-Brown told AIN that waterfront helipads like the one in Melbourne make ideal locations for early vertiports for several reasons, mostly pertaining to regulations and costs. Because helipads already have the necessary legal permissions for helicopter operations, “we don't need to go through a whole approval process,” he said. “So an existing helipad site is a very low-hanging fruit.”
“It's notoriously difficult to get a helipad permit anywhere in the world because of the noise and the safety impacts ... so they tend to be located in places which are away from people and in the safest possible location,” he said. “As it turns out, most helipads in urban centers are floating on the water because of that reason.”
Being on a waterfront also allows the option to build and expand infrastructure on the water rather than take up expensive land. Rather than paying to buy or rent land, infrastructure developers like Skyportz would pay the local government a fee for a license to use landing pads that float on the water, which in the case of Melbourne’s Yarra River is city-owned property.
In June, Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority released guidelines for vertiport design following a public consultation. These cover factors such as site selection, physical characteristics and visual aids.
Paris's eVTOL Plans Also Include a Waterfront Vertiport
Skyportz isn’t the first eVTOL infrastructure developer to propose a waterfront facility. In Paris, where Volocopter’s VoloCity eVTOL air taxi is expected to fly during the 2024 Olympic Games, city officials have greenlit plans to build a new waterfront vertiport. Volocopter will also make use of existing helipads and airports during those flight demonstrations.
The waterfront development that Skyportz is proposing in Melbourne also isn’t the company’s first vertiport concept, but it may be the most viable. One of its earlier designs featured a large terminal with three active landing pads and six charging stations. “At the moment that investment money is just not there,” said Newton-Brown, “because there's no return on investment for some time.” Then Skyportz came up with a simpler design that’s small enough to fit on the rooftops of skyscrapers and could be built for “a few hundred thousand euros,” he said.
“Neither of those examples were great examples for what I think will be a much broader rollout of vertiports,” said Newton-Brown. “The super tiny ones are probably just for private operators, private owners, and the bigger ones, they're more like mini airports.” To come up with a design that works best for its planned network of vertiports, Skyportz had to find a happy medium to create something that is “functional, beautiful, but not too expensive,” he said.
To design the new vertiport concept, Skyportz tapped two local architectural firms Contreras Earl and Pascall+Watson, which have extensive experience designing traditional airports. “This landmark building is the result of addressing many different important parameters, including sustainability, context, climate, community, and the user experience,” said Rafael Contreras, director of Contreras Earl Architecture.
“The vertiport will feature a high-performance roof designed to be structurally robust, lightweight, and sustainable owing to its aluminum monocoque structure – the same system employed in the manufacturing of cars and aircraft,” he explained. “We are proud to be part of the implementation of this new technology and what it means for the future of Melbourne and clean, green travel.”
Skyportz has also prepared plans for vertiport developments in other Australian cities including Brisbane in Queensland. In January 2022 it announced an agreement with a company called Secure Parking that could give it access to around 400 existing parking lots around the country.
