The Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has outlined the steps it is taking to prepare for the inevitable rise of vertiports.
Vertiports cater for high traffic volumes of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft used in advanced air mobility (AAM) operations, but the infrastructure planning is still in its infancy, which is presenting challenges to regulators around the world.
Director of Aviation Safety and CEO Pip Spence says CASA will be working with the aviation and urban mobility industries to develop regulation for Australia.
"You can't have a flying taxi service until you have the vertiports at which eVTOLs can safely land and take off," she said in the November 2022 CASA Briefing Newsletter.
"Australia is part of the global effort to introduce this exciting new technology and we see industry collaboration as a key to its successful implementation.
"A CASA team with extensive aerodrome experience has set the ball rolling by examining what vertiports could look like, where and how they might operate as well as the safety requirements governing their design and operation.
"Within a month, we expect to release Australia's first draft advisory circular on the design of vertiports on our consultation hub."
Spence also said that CASA was considering setting up a vertiport technical working group (TWG) to provide advice on regulation.
"We want industry working with us from the start of this process so this feedback will also go to a proposed vertiport design and operations technical working group (TWG) that the Aviation Safety Advisory Panel is considering establishing," she said.
"This is a different way of using a TWG and means the group will help us establish our regulatory framework for AAM infrastructure rather than presenting it with a proposal and hashing out the details."
Spence said CASA's approach would be to expand on the work done by European and US regulators by taking into account the performance of the aircraft and government regulations over the use of land, noise and environmental impacts.
eVTOL testing is well underway overseas at the moment and the first aircraft are expected to enter service around 2025.