ADVANCED AIR MOBILITY THE FUTURE AWAITS

ROB MATHER Vice President Aerospace and Defence Industries In 2021, Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) and Advanced Air Vehicles (AAVS) attracted $7 billion in new investment, a record year-more than doubling the total disclosed investments made over the previous decade. There is no doubt that the AAM industry is at a pivotal point across commercial aviation. But Rob Mather, Vice President, Aerospace and Defence Industries, IFS, explains that most AAM organisations have a "startup" mentality and it's those organisations that look beyond initial design and prototyping, and set up a strategy for widescale commercialisation and ongoing operations that stand to gain the most. That includes the software they use to manage every step of each AAV lifecycle.

The industry is chock full of acronyms in relation to Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) &the Advanced Air Vehicles (AAVs).So, we'll begin picking through the "acronym salad" by defining industry terms within the commercial aviation ecosystem:

There are a plethora of high-tech start-ups making rapid progress with all types of Advanced Air Vehicles (AAVs) with commercial and civilian applications.

The phenomenon of Urban Air Mobility (UAM) think flying taxis for short passenger trips or cargo deliveries is being made possiblewith Electric Vertical Take-off and Landing (eVTOL) aircraft, through to fully Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) much larger than your typical drone,that will be used for AAV Certifications are on the horizon both sides of the Atlantic.

Here, we explore the latest technology at the forefront of the future of air travel: Advanced Air Vehicles are not a far-off future technology from the Jetsons; they are coming sooner than you might think and airworthiness certificates are just around the corner. Consider this 2021 assessment from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA): "Urban Air Mobility is expected to become a reality in Europe within 3-5 years. New technologies such as electric propulsion and enhanced battery capacity, applied to vertical take-off and landing systems, make this possible. The first commercial operations are expected to be the delivery of goods by drones and the transport of passengers, initially with a pilot on board. Later remote piloting or even autonomous services could follow. Several pilot projects are under way and some European manufacturers have already applied for certification, including for piloted vehicles for passenger transport. EASA is working with them on the airworthiness of the vehicles."