V/STOL Aircraft Systems: Public Forum

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies (NASEM) has released two new resources on AAM at airports & vertiports. ACRP Research Report 236: Preparing Your Airport for Electric Aircraft and Hydrogen Technologies offers an introduction to the emerging electric aircraft industry, gives estimates of potential market growth, and provides guidance to help airports estimate the potential impacts of electric aircraft on their facilities and to be prepared to accommodate them. A series of appendices provides details on the assumptions and methods used in the research as well as helpful references for airport planning.

ACRP Research Report 243: Urban Air Mobility: An Airport Perspective provides a comprehensive examination of the emerging UAM industry with a focus on its impacts and opportunities for aviation facilities. On the airport planning side, don't miss Chapter 6: Planning Strategies for Integrating Urban Air Mobility into Airports that is the continuation of the conversation started with ACRP Research Report 236. The report features also extensive discussions on aviation security requirements, flight operations, STOLport facilities, etc.

Here are the links to these two reports:

• ACRP Research Report 236: Preparing Your Airport for Electric Aircraft & Hydrogen Technologies
• ACRP Research Report 243: Urban Air Mobility: An Airport Perspective

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Gaël Le Bris
WSP USA
Pittsboro NC
(407)818-6879
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Here is the paragraph (only a paragraph!) on airport hydrogen infrastructure differences:

14.4 Hydrogen Infrastructure Hydrogen will power some electric aircraft through fuel cells. Fuel cells might be best suited for regional and larger aircraft. However, this technology has been implemented on some experimental smaller aircraft types as well-including motor gliders and two-seaters. The main limitation is the availability of hydrogen at airports. Three types of refueling solutions are being
considered:
• Aircraft refueling by fueling truck (tanker).
• Aircraft hydrogen container swap.
• Aircraft refueling from a hydrant system. Although hydrogen and Jet-A have different physical and chemical properties, the overall process of supplying, storing, and fueling gaseous hydrogen at the airport will be relatively similar to existing aviation fuel supply chains. There is no adequate infrastructure today to deliver large quantities of hydrogen to aircraft. In the short term, it is very likely that aircraft will be refueled with hydrogen through fueling trucks or special containers or pods. Hydrogen pipelines and hydrant systems could emerge at some large hub airports in the future, especially if this gas becomes a popular energy vector for other transportation modes and applications.


National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Preparing Your Airport for Electric Aircraft and Hydrogen Technologies. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. https://doi.org/10.17226/26512.

This paragraph is laughable. For hydrogen to be used for any large, or long-range aircraft, in must be in liquid form. Handling large amounts of liquid hydrogen for aerospace applications is done only by NASA, and they delayed the SLS launch for months diagnosing an fixing hydrogen leaks. Refueling aircraft with liquid hydrogen on commercial aircraft turnaround timelines and frequencies in my view is the 2nd-highest risk element of its use on aircraft. The first is tanking and piping the liquid onboard the aircraft. Liquid hydrogen exposed to any insulation failure can liquify air (20% Oxygen) - an easily catastrophic condition.



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