Nearly everyone has experienced the frustration of waiting in traffic while precious minutes pass. The maddening search to find a parking spot or a safe place for you to ride in an Uber is just as frustrating.These headaches can be life-threatening for emergency medical personnel. We have all looked up at the sky from behind the sea of red taillights and wished we could get out of the gridlock to reach any corner of the city in half the time.Flying cars are now a reality. Both the Senate and the U.S. House are currently reviewing the early stages of regulatory review for eVTOLs electric vertical takeoff/landing vehicles.There is no place to land them. Urban air mobility promises superlative convenience. A trip to the airport would normally take 90 minutes door to door. This can be reduced to 10 minutes. This promise must be fulfilled by eVTOL landing spots that are as easily accessible as taxi lines. They should be within a five-minute walk or one-minute elevator ride from your office.We have seen heliports built on roofs of hospitals and office buildings at the edges of large cities. Helicopters' external rotors are too loud and dangerous to land in narrow spaces. Helicopter ports must be located at the borders of cities as they require extra space for noise and safety.Today's urban flightMy experience as a helicopter pilot is over 25 years. Urban air travel is not new to me. Their use has been limited by noise ordinances, space limitations, and safety measures that make commercial helicopter flights feasible.Although VTOLs have been improved for commercial use, they don't solve the problem of noise. They do not eliminate the risk associated with large wingspans and external moving mechanical parts.Instead of seeing airports as the ideal model for advanced air mobility, metro hubs should be considered. They offer multiple departures and arrivals daily.These VTOLs require much more space for takeoffs and landings, which means that intracity travel will not be possible without large infrastructure investments. This is a fact that has been pointed out by many urban air mobility analysts as well as NASA personnel. It would take years to disrupt cities and transform large portions of their rooftops into miniairports in order for it to work.This is not the only option. Engineers are working on compact VTOLs that have the agility and safety of a helicopter but the size and interior machinery of a car. These vehicles are the most likely to demonstrate the viability and safety of VTOLs. Imagine an ambulance arriving on the scene of an accident by air landing in a parking spot-sized area directly next to it and quickly moving the injured to another hospital.Instead of looking at airports as the model for advanced air mobility we should instead look at metro hubs with multiple departures/arrivals per day. This kind of passenger turnover is only possible if there are many eVTOLs coming to and going like a train station. If most of the eVTOLS are smaller then a passenger van, this is not possible.Take into account the ground and not the skylineIn a few decades, the city's infrastructure will be very different. Modern metropolis will have vertiports that can handle VTOLs of any size and range. These train stations for the sky will require vision, forward thinking, and a lot of vision on the part city planners, civil engineers and policymakers, as well citizens who demand alternative modes of transportation.The current prototypes need dramatic resurfacing of city skylines to allow for safe takeoff and landing at scale. But it doesn't have to be that way. Too often, the street infrastructure needed to bring VTOLs into cities is overlooked.Cities must consider where and how they will store VTOLs. It is important to consider the city as it exists now. How can we design a vehicle that blends naturally into the existing environment? Can we find space for a vehicle that can coexist with the city's birds and people? A quiet enough vehicle that everyone would be happy to have on their rooftop apartment?Big vision, small footprintA smaller eVTOL not only makes it more agile and safer in tight spaces but also allows for more vehicles per sq. foot and more flights per hour. This means that more people can move around town in a more economical way.To build the vertiport, we first need to use the existing infrastructure in order to demonstrate the benefits of urban air mobility. It is important to match the technology with the infrastructure city dwellers expect and use, not vice versa. This allows for an eco-friendly, lightweight VTOL that can land on any surface an SUV could fit, not just on parking lots, piers, or helipads.It is not enough to be small. Alternative fuel sources must be considered. While batteries are one thing, they're inefficient and have a negative ecological impact. Some VTOL developers propose hydrogen as a fuel source. I welcome this idea and encourage more investments in hydrogen-powered aviation. VTOL developers are not excused from taking large steps towards hydrogen-powered airliners in the larger commercial aviation market.We must start with a truly efficient VTOL, which can make the greatest impact in the shortest amount of time. This is especially important for emergency services. It is essential that the promise of flying cars improving people's lives be made clear and readily available in the most critical of cases.This will have a positive immediate impact and will help to open the door for infrastructure, acceptance and commercialization of VTOLs in all sizes and uses. It will be the realization of the dream of a flying car.
