Volocopter shares its vision of skyport networks for flying taxis

19 Apr 2018

Showing off a fully functioning flying taxi is one thing, having a plan in place for how you'll move hundreds of them around big cities is another. German aviation company Volocopter has today shared its plans for urban air taxi infrastructure, envisioning dozens of transport hubs scattered around urban centres that would move tens of thousands of passengers per day.

Rendering of the Volocopter flying taxi in action

With so much still to play out in terms of technological development and regulatory approval, it's hard to take any plan for fully fleshed out air taxi infrastructure as anything more than a thought experiment.

But with so much money being poured into the industry from the likes of Boeing and Airbus, along with countless smaller startups, it's certainly a good time to start thinking about how our cities would function with fleets of flying taxis zipping around overhead.

Already NASA is doing this in a way, with a nationwide drone traffic control system under development. It has also teamed up with Uber to develop traffic control systems for its flying taxis, with the ride-sharing company hoping to launch its UberAir service in Dubai, Dallas and LA in 2020.

Kitty Hawk's Cora self-flying air taxi for two has officially launched in New Zealand (Credit: Kitty Hawk)

Kitty Hawk autonomous flying taxi officially unveiled

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Now Volocopter is keen to share its ideas. Its concept describes both Volo-Ports and Volo-Hubs. The latter would work like cable car stations, with the company's two-seater, autonomous aircraft landing and taking off from pads every 30 seconds. After landing, each vehicle would move inside the hub, where its passengers hop out and its batteries are swapped, readying it for takeoff again.

Continue reading the full article on New Atlas.

Source: New Atlas

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About Nick Lavars

Nick was born outside of Melbourne, Australia, with a general curiosity that has drawn him to some distant (and very cold) places. Somewhere between enduring a winter in the Canadian Rockies and trekking through Chilean Patagonia, he graduated from university and pursued a career in journalism. Having worked for publications such as The Santiago Times and The Conversation, he now writes for New Atlas from Melbourne, excited by tech and all forms of innovation, the city's bizarre weather and curried egg sandwiches.