ABOVE: The upcoming vertiport, seen here in the bottom right, sits alongside an artists’ rendering of the airfield – including what appear to be three vintage biplanes
Bicester Motion has broken ground on the UK’s first vertiport, a venture it describes as “a critical facility” to allow future electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) or ‘flying taxi’ concepts to take to the skies.
The move follows planning approval from Cherwell District Council, granted in August. At the time, Bicester Motion chief executive Daniel Geoghegan described the move would ensure the airfield could continue to “welcome aircraft from all eras including new mobility technologies”. Following the groundbreaking ceremony, he reiterated that Bicester is “proud to support this vertiport testbed as part of our strategic vision to integrate both traditional and vertical aviation operations from our airfield and boost pioneering future mobility discovery”.
The vertiport is being constructed as part of the Advanced Mobility Ecosystem Consortium, an Innovate UK Future Flight Challenge project. Situated in a corner of the existing airfield on a 0.42 acre plot of land, the landing site itself will be augmented by a ‘compact 160sq metre passenger terminal’ and is due for completion in ‘early 2025’.
A launch event will see Consortium partners ‘test and demonstrate key outputs and findings from the project,’ expected to include demonstration flights by the UK’s Vertical Aerospace; currently developing a piloted, four-seat eVTOL aircraft called the VX4.
“As a proud member of the Advanced Air Mobility Ecosystem Consortium, Vertical Aerospace is excited to see this state-of-the-art vertiport come to life,” commented chief commercial and strategy officer Michael Cervenka. “Facilities like this are essential for enabling the seamless integration of electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft into our airspace and helping people better understand the benefits they bring”.
IMAGE: BICESTER MOTION
