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Experts: Unmanned Air Travel Is Close to Becoming a Reality

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and Longbow Group hosted an event to showcase how drone technology — such as air taxis and other unmanned cargo transport — can be incorporated into society.

Drone taking off - use once
An Advanced Aircraft Company hybrid advanced multi-rotor small unmanned aircraft system flies above the ground of Fort Monroe during the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International Hampton Roads chapter demonstration day Wednesday afternoon October 6, 2021.
Jonathon Gruenke/Daily Press
(TNS) — Experts say unmanned air travel is on the horizon and concepts such as air taxis and other unmanned cargo transport — even pizza delivery — are much closer to reality than ever.

To show how close, a few local aerial tech entrepreneurs demoed their crafts Wednesday to a few dozen spectators. The program was hosted by the local chapter of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International and the aviation firm Longbow Group

The companies showed off their drones at Longbow’s test center at Fort Monroe, including those capable of mapping, surveying, underwater surveillance and robotics.

“The first question to ask yourself, if you had a magic carpet, what would you use a magic carpet for?” said Bill Fredericks, who founded Hampton-based Advanced Aircraft Company, one of the tech entrepreneurial companies demonstrating Wednesday. “That’s a very open-ended question. Right now, we’re currently focused on survey mapping and infrastructure inspection. But there are many other use cases.”

Advance Aircraft’s drone is a hybrid fueled by gasoline to fly far distances, but only ascended several hundred feet. The technology for out of sight activities, such as autonomous search and rescues, is being perfected now.

In May, Longbow announced a partnership with NASA Langley Research Center to develop unmanned aerial flight paths between Langley’s campus and its Fort Monroe location that would help drones navigate air space when sharing with other aircraft. Think of it as air space management so drones won’t crash into each other or into other commercial aircraft, said Fredericks, a former NASA engineer.

The company wants to obtain necessary approvals from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly drones beyond current parameters for small unmanned aircraft.

Longbow owner Marco Sterk said his group is working with the drone companies to test flights. Sterk also is working with NASA, which is developing the technologies — among them “beyond visual line of sight” for law enforcement and first responder use in search-and-rescue missions and other maritime surveillance.

“We feed that data back to the FAA, so they can give us more and more authority to open up that airspace and monitor the drones,” he said. “We need certain routes.”

Most drones can only fly for 20 minutes and need frequently battery changes. They can only be controlled within the operator’s view. But drones powered by fuel, plus the emerging technology to monitor them in shared air space, will make them useful in many areas and industries.

Sterk said the company’s main mission for now is to create an environment here for Hampton companies building the drones that can be shared globally.

“Today we are getting a glimpse of that future,” says Kevin River, associate center director at NASA Langley. “Urban air mobility means an air transportation system where everything from small package delivery drones to passenger-carrying taxis operate in and above our towns and cities.”

Longbow started in 2006 in Memphis, and over the past decade, has pivoted from aviation consulting to the emerging commercial unmanned systems market. Last year the company moved its shop to Hampton Roads.

The company entered into a two-year licensing agreement with Hampton that allows it to do test flights with drone companies from two launch sites on an 11-acre parcel. Hampton leases the parcel from the Fort Monroe Authority for $1.

The site, at 96 Stilwell Ave., employs five, but Sterk has plans to double the staff when it moves to its permanent headquarters in downtown Hampton at the Harbor Center. There, the company will work with defense contractors to build high-powered radar systems to monitor the drones.

“The ecosystem here in Hampton Roads (has) many more interesting collaboration partners,” Sterk said. “We’re kind of a cradle of aerospace here.”

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