City buildings could blow air taxi future: Study

According to a recent study, the instability caused by sudden wind gusts from around the city building can be the next challenge for the air taxi industry.

Los Angeles [US]: Researchers have measured how sudden wind gusts from around city buildings cause aircraft to become unstable. The study was published in the journal, 'Drones.' The air taxi market is almost ready to take off, with companies like Boeing, Hyundai, Airbus, and Toyota constructing fleets to transport commuters through the sky. Europe and the United States have drafted new rules to allow air taxis to begin operations within the next decade, and Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is expected to follow suit.

The air taxi market is almost ready to take off, with companies like Boeing, Hyundai, Airbus, and Toyota constructing fleets to transport commuters through the sky. Europe and the United States have both drafted new rules to allow air taxis to begin operations within the next decade, and Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) is expected to follow suit.

Next steps:"Purpose-built vertiports mean we could integrate geometric design features to reduce hazardous flow conditions from occurring, and we are exploring this in our current research," Mohamed said. "Existing buildings can also be repurposed as vertiports but may require modifications to improve the aerodynamics near the landing pads".

He added "The effectiveness of such design features can be assessed through either scaled experiments in wind tunnels or full-scale measurements. Extensive wind flow mapping at full-scale will no longer be daunting in the future. We are continuing to develop our wind sensing drones - a swarm of drones instrumented with wind anemometers - to very accurately map around large infrastructure." (ANI)