The German all-electric air taxi company, Lilium, has announced plans to develop modular mini-airports which could be situated almost anywhere, reports springwise.com.
The company has been working to develop their electric craft, with a plan to deliver direct flights of up to one hour from one city centre to another by 2025. The planes would take-off and land vertically, like helicopters, minimising the infrastructure required. Now, the company has released designs for “turnkey mini-airports” landing pads it hopes to use.
Called vertiports, Lilium’s landing pads are based around a lean, modular and flexible design which can be placed in a wide variety of locations, from an existing transport terminal to a shopping centre, on top of a busy car park, or next to a suburban residential development.
The design is based around a set of standardised modules that allows developers to easily slot one into existing or planned developments. The vertiport modules can also be prefabricated off-site. Each module includes a take-off site, parking stand for the planes and a terminal. The company is also developing a plug-and-play capability which includes high-power charging equipment, air traffic control technology and digital check-in tools.
The vertiports will also be adaptable and scalable, for rapid growth. According to Lilium, “Keeping our design lean and modular will allow our network to grow rapidly, helping us to deliver high-speed connectivity in a fraction of the time it typically takes to build roads or railways.”
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