Port San Antonio's Ambitious Vision: A Futuristic Hub for eVTOL Innovation

Port San Antonio, whose geographic location is the top of the former Air Force Base Kelly, has a project which is the installation of a top-of-the-art vertiport, for housing and deploying the electrical vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft due to the recent $100 million renovation of the airport.

Construction of the vertiport has been a long dream of Jim Perschbach the Port Principal Executive to build up the Port as an innovation platform to draw top private and government industry-players here and attract the advanced aviation, transportation, cyber security and communications industries.

“Despite the fact that advanced air mobility has a sound concept, it involves many difficulties that we considered essential in our business. We are very much certain that it has an excellent development potential due to the following factors namely…,” as Perschbach said in an interview. In my opinion first reason is unquestionable, I`m forever in love with aviation yet second reason is actually a similar one because when we will be extending the campus, we will need to find various options to get people across it.

Project overview

The Port officials are involved in talks with the manufacturers of Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft (eVTOL). If the reducers of emissions succeed, they may settle down at the Port. Construction of an these facilities which may include the landing, takeoff sites, hangar space and charging mass space starts with the ground breaking that will be done next month billionaire plans to have his facility to be ready to initiate the commercial eVTOL operations in the next five years.

“The work for the physical design, the design of the charging terminals and all the elements which will follow are far from over. ” Besides this, there’s the air corridor design that’s needed for the approach and the departure, and there’s the integration of the whole project into the rest of the campus.

The funding for this project would be derived from various sources such as the central and state government along with allegations of construction of aviation facilities. This is a part of the renovation of the airfield which the Port would incorporate into its running policies and procedures.

Significance

The airport will subsume some of its airside tertiary services, such as the aviation company for refueling and maintenance which will now be housed on the airfield. The facility will now be in a better position to accommodate more significant aircraft.

While there are still questions, down to the smallest details, of whether even utilities such as underground utility lines and charging infrastructure constitute as aviation-related costs, Perschbach does not know whether to appropriately account them as aviation.

Branding the campus with modern aviation project as the next logical development from the old Air Force base to the downtown Port Area that hosts private-public partnerships including advanced industries and technology innovations means a lot to Perschbach.

“The kind of process we are running right now is to draw federal government, transport, and energy industries which are targeted at defending the huge Integration layer,” he stated.

The invention of a place for Port San Antonio’s eVTOL aircraft, commonly known as “flying taxis”, will provide the basis of the port’s transport needs, including passenger and cargo transportation around the 1,900-acre site, Perschbach said. However, the projected vertiport might acquire more passengers and cargo for the public beyond the port’s boundaries they serve in the future.

Scope

The Port is currently ranging approximately 18,000 employees, almost half of which are new workers in the past six years. Proposals are underway and are intended to help increase the number of total workers by another 12,000 to 18,000 within the following seven to ten years.

Though at first intended only as an army base, Kelly Air Force base was to be built at the end of the road and have an only-the-brave-need-apply, unreachable kind of aura to it. Perschbach continued, “As it becomes more of center for the technology and creativity, we are starting to think about getting rid of the barriers so that transportation won’t be a big hurdle. ”

Challenges

“The residential land and business land we have right now”. That is why we have to have airfield rail busy workers who are able to move cargo from one end of a runway to another. “Furthermore, safety and security is another area of concern that we tread everyday. People need to express the desire to move around campus. ”“You have to pay for building streets, parking structures, parking areas and all of that turns out to be quite costly and irrational. ”

Also, the Port San Antonio’s eVTOL transportation services of the vertiport nearby could be emulated in the whole area in the future by using the network of park and ride labs as takeoff and landing sites. “So, the other Park and Ride called Kel-Lac is between us and Lackland Air Force Base not too far from here. I mean a flight over to our vertiport would not be too long a flight plus back,” Perschbach said.

Certification

According to him, the development of eVTOL technology is very rapid, thus he hopes viability for commerce will be also available just in time before the grand opening of the vertiport. From among the several leading eVTOL producers, who confirm that they intend to have their aircraft certified by the FAA within the next one or two years, it follows that there are soon to become viable and widely used modes of transportation in the flying sphere.

“Initially, absolutely, you’ll have pilots at the controls alongside the old fashioned modes of piloting,” Perschbach said. Nevertheless, according to him, as the technology develops and as the public’ acceptance towards the source of driving is being improved, travelling people by autonomous eVTOL flights may also occur.

Vision

It is expected from the Port to give the little nudge to the community to sink its teeth into a new tech.

What happens here is – operators of these machines will be in to run “theme park” style operations, very closely linked to airlines’ promotional moves in 1930. “It wasn’t much different from what the airlines used to do back then to push such tours or cruises,” said Perschbach.

“By my report I reckon that the CSU is anticipated to be the first-user market. In the first place we have a number of students who are veterans,” he said. “And so, thay will be all the more keen on aviation as months go by, particularly items that look like the airs and spaces of the great era of aviation. ”