Government/Regulators
UAM Word of the Day/Year/Decade: Lithium
eVTOLs Need Batteries; Batteries Need Lithium
In the 1967 Oscar-winning film, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman received a one-word piece of advice from his father’s friend at his high school graduation party: “Plastics. There’s a great future in plastics.” The film, were it to be remade today, might give a recent college grad a different one-word recommendation: Lithium. (If a few words of…
eVTOL UAVs to Take on Jaws as Shark-Spotters
Think of it as a sort of "Shark Eye for the Beach Guys (and gals)."
It’s been 45 years since film director Steven Spielberg frightened beachgoers and boaters out of the oceans with his iconic, shark-fest thriller, Jaws. Now, scientists at the Benioff Ocean Initiative at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) may have found a way, using artificial intelligence (AI) and UAVs (drones), to spot sharks, track…
NASA, Wisk, and Alaka’i Form UAM Partnership
As part of its Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Campaign (NC), NASA announced on November 16, 2020, that it had signed information exchange agreements with UAM vehicle developers, Mountain View, California-based Wisk and Hopkinton, Massachusetts-based Alaka’i Technologies. The agreements will facilitate the integration of eVTOLs and hybrid VTOLs into the U.S. national airspace. Working with…
eVTOLs, Flying Cars, and Urban Air Mobility Are Coming to Canada
Transport Canada Tells Us How UAM Will Integrate into the Great White North
With 3.86 million square miles (about 9.98 million square kilometers), Canada, as the world’s second largest country by total area, has a lot of ground to cover. Its 10 provinces and three territories are home to densely populated metropolises and remote regions populated by indigenous peoples. UAM (aka AAM) will help Canadians enhance urban mobility,…
Advanced Air Mobility, Canadian Style
Canadian Air Mobility and the Canadian Air Mobility Consortium Make Flight Plans
Canadians have a reputation . . . for being polite, bilingual, sort of British, sort of French, and perhaps most famously, for not being Americans. So, it should come as no surprise that their approach to urban air mobility is unique. They’re among those calling it advanced air mobility (AAM), but one wonders how long…
AFWERX Shifts UAM Initiative Into High Gear
AFWERX, the U.S. Air Force unit that fosters innovation and connections between private industry, academia, and the military, is recommending more than 250 proposals it received in response to its X20D Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR), Open Topic solicitation regarding its “flying car” subject. The group is on track to be “the largest single cohort…