Skyportz releases vertiport concepts for Brisbane Olympics
Skyportz has published concepts for vertiports on the Brisbane River it hopes will be operational in time for Brisbane Olympics in 2032.
The Australian vertiport developer unveiled its ideas at the annual Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) summit on the Gold Coast. The vertiport designs were produced with Contreras Earl Architecture, in collaboration with UK firms Pascall+Watson and Minmud.
“At Skyportz we believe that the lowest hanging fruit for retrofitting vertiports into urban areas are natural aviation corridors such as rivers,” said CEO, Clem Newton-Brown. “While there are a small number of cities around the world that have developed rooftop helipads, they are not the easiest places to safely land aircraft. There are usually better options, particularly in waterfront cities.”
Skyportz has also been working with Abdulghani Mohamed, a former Australian Scientist of the Year, on wind and turbulence modelling in cities and trialling specific sites.
“We keep coming back to waterfront locations as being the safest and most logical place to install new vertiports in large cities when it comes to turbulence,” said Newton-Brown.
Benefits of waterfront vertiports include:
- Access to sites that are scarce in urban environments.
- Government leases rather than purchasing expensive land.
- Clear approach and departure paths above the water.
- Little chance of losing aviation corridors due to subsequent development.
- Less wind turbulence compared to central urban areas.
- More predictable airflows.
Australia is gearing up the for the arrival of air taxis. The domestic air regulator, CASA, this week released its first vertiport guidelines. The CASA guidelines see new vertiports excluding helicopters completely to assist with developing community support for AAM.
