Blackstone vertiport receives landmark approval

Move over, North Carolina.

The Tar Heel State may have been first in flight, but Virginia landed a first for the advanced air mobility industry in September 2023 when the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration granted conditional approval for the nation’s first public-use vertiport, a landing and launch site for electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft — notably including air taxis — to be located at Allen C. Perkinson Airport, also known as Blackstone Army Airfield, in Nottoway County.

The roughly 600-acre airport, jointly owned by the Army and the Town of Blackstone, services civilian and military aircraft and includes a concrete runway and helipad.

Funded by an autonomous systems grant from the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp., Floyd County-based Navos Air, which worked with the FAA to obtain approval for the vertiport, is developing what Matt Burton, Navos’ technical director, calls the “invisible infrastructure,” or a system of terminal instrument procedures and enroute infrastructure anchored by vertiports to enable safe navigation by the advanced air mobility industry. Navos will continue that research once the vertiport, which is slated for an unused taxiway on the airport’s north side, is up and running.

Initial work on physical infrastructure involves site improvements, including painting and marking a designated area, says Blackstone Town Manager Philip Vannoorbeeck, adding that he anticipates “an appreciable” amount of utility and concrete work to come.

As the FAA solidifies guidance for vertiport design and criteria, the airport will work with an engineering firm to continue work on the site, says Joe Allman, who manages services at the airport for the town and is also president of UAV Pro, a local unmanned aerial vehicle integration company. Infrastructure updates to support the vertiport could include taxiway guidance and charging facilities; the airport has an electrical charging station scheduled for installation in March.

State licensing for the vertiport is expected to come in January, says Greg Campbell, director of the Virginia Department of Aviation.

The state estimates that the AAM industry could generate up to $16 billion in new business and carry as many as 66 million passengers by 2045. While Campbell anticipates cargo will be the industry’s initial focus, shuttling passengers from places not traditionally served by large airplanes may not be too far behind.

“It will be an exciting decade or two,” he says, “as these technologies become more advanced and more proven.”