Work has resumed on the next phase of the Gulf of Finland (GOF) U-Space project to support the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles and eVTOL air taxis into public airspace. The GOF 2.0 Integrated Urban Airspace Validation project, which is supported by the European Union’s Single European Sky ATM Research (SESAR) agency, got underway in late January and involves 13 partner companies and organizations.
Over the next two years, the extended project will build on the work done as part of the initial GOF U-Space exercise in the summer of 2019 that included seven live trials with 11 drones and manned aircraft. At that time, flights were conducted in both controlled and uncontrolled airspace and at flight levels both below and above 500 feet in urban, rural, and maritime environments. Now the main focus will be on testing aircraft in urban airspace to evaluate how drones and passenger-carrying eVTOLs could safely be operated alongside existing aircraft.
