Investigation of short take-off and landing (STOL) applicability to urban, suburban, and rural air mobility. Rising populations in and around cities worldwide are causing substantial mobility…

This is a cost-plus-fixed-fee delivery order contract awarded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Langley Research Center to the National Institute of Aerospace Associates (NIA), a non-profit research organization, for the investigation of short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft applicability to urban, suburban, and rural air mobility. The $193,162.24 task order is part of a larger indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity (IDIQ) contract vehicle and does not have a set-aside designation.

The work seeks to analyze the potential for STOL operations, including electric STOL (eSTOL), as an alternative to electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for urban air mobility. Key areas of investigation include energy efficiency, range, payload capacity, noise, and infrastructure requirements. NIA will collaborate with the Georgia Tech Research Corporation as a subcontractor to develop an analysis tool for identifying potential STOL airfield locations. This research aligns with NASA's interests in advancing air transportation technologies and enabling new concepts of metropolitan air mobility.

Investigation of short take-off and landing (STOL) applicability to urban, suburban, and rural air mobility. Rising populations in and around cities worldwide are causing substantial mobility issues. There is increasing geographical sprawl of urban areas and commute times are ever-rising, both due to increasing commuting distances and increasing congestion on roads and public transit. Meanwhile, a convergence of evolving technologies, such as electric propulsion and autonomous systems, is enabling transformational changes in aircraft design and operation. There is interest, therefore, in expanding the metropolitan transport network into the air. At present, there is substantial interest in the use of electric vertical take-off and landing (EVTOL) aircraft for urban air mobility (UAM); however, this concept has many technological and operational challenges. Operation in a completely urban environment is a step change from todays aircraft operations in which we attempt to separate air travel from populous areas. The use of EVTOL aircraft themselves also introduces a number of inherent constraints to vehicle and mission design, such as high energy and power requirements due to vertical flight, and limited forecasted battery technologies. An alternative possibility would be to use short take-off and landing (STOL) aircraft. STOL operations, with no hover requirement, inherently have reduced energy and power requirements relative to vertical operations. If a viable concept of operations exists for STOL, including electric STOL (ESTOL) aircraft, there may be improvements relative to EVTOL operations, in aspects such as energy efficiency, range, payload capacity, overall vehicle performance, noise, and infrastructure requirements. For example, with a greater range than EVTOL operations, STOL operations may improve the access of suburban and rural communities to urban centers, provide access to improved work and study opportunities, and ultimately improve the economy in rural, suburban, and urban areas. In addition, there are have been many STOL aircraft designed and built in the past, and novel ESTOL aircraft should be able to be certified more easily under part 23 amendment 64 than EVTOL aircraft. STOL vehicles could be early adopters of technological improvements, such as batteries and autonomy, and could enable many of the challenges associated with this new technology to be proven ahead of use in EVTOL aircraft. One immediately obvious challenge with STOL operations in an urban environment is the larger ground footprint, both in terms of the runway required and the approach and departure paths close to the ground. This may be less of a concern in suburban and rural areas. Another challenge is that STOL operations are likely to be more susceptible to variation in wind direction than vtol operations. This statement of work seeks to investigate the applicability of STOL operations to urban, suburban and rural environments.