Mönchengladbach Airport (MGL) is committed to research into future-oriented and sustainable concepts in aviation and the consistent alignment of the airfield to new technologies. After SkyCab and OpAL (operational effects of new drives in aviation), funding has now been approved for the next research project, SkyTRACKplus.
Almost 500,000 euros will be invested in a robust flight operations concept at the Mönchengladbach site over the next 18 months for the safe, plannable and weather-independent parallel operation of manned and unmanned aircraft. Half of this is funded by the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport (BMDV), with Mönchengladbach Airport alone receiving almost 150,000 euros.
Under the name SkyTRACKplus, the MGL, together with the project team (FH Aachen, DRONIQ GmbH, Paderborn/Lippstadt Airport, City of Mönchengladbach) is researching publishable and controlled flight procedures for air taxis and drones, which are created together with air traffic control and tested with a drone. The result is available to all airspace users as a common good.
Safe flight operations, including the innovative and sustainable new flying objects, are not possible without the appropriate procedures. The concepts developed in this project are therefore an important contribution to the mobility revolution. They not only ensure sustainable mobility offers in urban areas, but also pave the way for the use of the agile, electrically operated flying objects in the medical sector as well as by the fire brigade, police and civil protection. Highly automated and digitally networked, they reduce the CO2 footprint through electrified flying and optimized route and flight management and noticeably reduce noise emissions. A plus, especially in an urban environment.
Mönchengladbach Airport (MGL) provides a real laboratory with ground and airside infrastructure to test flights and procedures. For this purpose, two drones are being acquired to act as small-scale demonstrators to test the interaction of several unmanned flying objects in a complex airspace.
“At Mönchengladbach Airport we offer the complete infrastructure of a multimodal mobility hub to promote the integration of manned and unmanned airspace participants,” says MGL Managing Director Andreas Ungar.
Drones and later air taxis fly significantly lower than airplanes. Below the minimum radar guidance altitude, no area-wide location solution and thus air traffic control is available. The integration into the challenging air traffic system with high traffic and airfield density is to be worked out using a sample route between the airports in Mönchengladbach and Paderborn with a stopover in urban and rural areas
Experience from SkyCab
The MGL has already gained experience with this complex task as part of the SkyCab project. The first test flight of the future air taxi took place in 2021 with a small-scale demonstrator drone from Germandrones in accordance with aviation standards and after approval by the aviation authorities in cooperation with DFS Aviation Services. The demonstrator drone received the take-off clearance from air traffic control in the control zone at MGL Airport during ongoing flight operations. With its traffic management system (UTM), DRONIQ ensured the electronic visibility of the flying object for the long-distance pilots from Germandrones along the entire flight route.
It is clear that aircraft and the significantly low-flying drones and air taxis can only be safely integrated into the active airspace with a combined air situation picture for all air traffic participants. In cooperation with DRONIQ, the interface of the UTM data to the prevailing air traffic system is to be implemented as part of SkyTRACKplus.
The SkyTRACKplus results make a broad use of such innovative air mobility solutions possible, which also opens up new economic options. “At the MGL we have potential areas of almost 200,000 m² on which an innovative aviation/drone cluster can be located,” says MGL Managing Director Dr. Ulrich Schückhaus. The training and maintenance operations on site and the recent investment in a battery charger round off the range of services for air taxis and drones.
Photo: Flughafen-©-Flughafen-Mönchengladbach
Source: Airport Zentrale (Google Translation)