Angelo Vallerani, President of the Lombardy Aerospace Cluster: "In the Lombard aerospace industry there is the availability of all the technology and skills necessary to create new systems capable of decongesting the road arteries"
"In the Lombard aerospace industry there is the availability of all the technology and skills necessary to create new systems capable, thanks to vertical flight, to decongest the road arteries through more sustainable mobility with the use of helicopters, tiltrotors, drones and Unmanned vehicles. The commitment of the production system on this front is maximum ": this is the message of Angelo Vallerani, President of the Lombardia Aerospace Cluster, during the round table" Advanced Air Mobility: a challenge for the future ". The setting is that of the A&T, Automation & Testing Fair in Turin, dedicated to innovation, technologies, reliability and 4.0 skills.
The Piedmont Aerospace District, the Campania Aerospace Technological District and Leonardo Spa also took part in the event, organized and strongly supported by the Lombardia Aerospace Cluster, with testimonials and best practices.
“We have been carrying out this project for over a year - continues Vallerani - and the 2026 appointment with the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics represents our testing ground. We have a precise date to refer to, which allows us to evaluate in time what technologies are already available to be developed for the event and, why not, to anticipate some aspects of the mobility of the future ". In this context, the signing, a few weeks ago, of the Memorandum of Understanding between Enac, the National Authority for Civil Aviation and the Lombardy Region, for the implementation of common activities in favor of the development of Advanced Air Mobility, is significant. “Thanks to this agreement, for example, the use of the convertiplane developed by Leonardo, which combines the versatility of the vertical take-off of a helicopter with the comfort and speed of an airplane, will be enhanced for medium-long routes. A nice change if you think that to go from Milan to Cortina it usually takes 5 hours by car, an hour with a helicopter and less than half an hour with the tiltrotor ”, explains the President of the Lombard Aerospace Cluster.
Another project under development is a system of drones for the transport of goods on safe dedicated routes, useful for decongesting traffic on the roads, in particular those in the mountains if one thinks of Cortina. And looking at Urban Air Mobility, there is the possibility of experimenting with the use of evtol (electric vertical take off landing), electric vertical take off aircraft with very low environmental impact, reaching both urban centers and Olympic locations more fast and with almost no impact on the environment. “In this context, the 2026 Olympic event represents an intermediate step, also to convert companies to new technologies and prepare for a future in which mobility will no longer be what we are used to today”, urges Vallerani.
The international technological scenario
Tracing the boundaries of the international technological scenario regarding the increasingly massive use of AAM technologies are Giuseppe Quaranta, Professor of the Polytechnic of Milan and Giorgio Guglieri, Professor of the Polytechnic of Turin. “Advanced Air Mobility is a new safe and sustainable mode of air transport for passengers and cargo. Its declination, in an urban setting, involves the use of vertical take-off and landing aircraft with electric motors. Initially they will be manned aircraft, but in the future it will be possible to move towards remotely piloted or autonomous systems. The use of the AAM in urban areas concerns the transport of passengers and goods, emergency services, surveillance, the transmission of signals and aerial work ", explains Quaranta, adding however that the challenges to be overcome are still many, including the perception that people have of these technologies. "From a study by Easa, European Union Aviation Safety Agency, it was understood that 83% of European citizens have a positive disposition towards the AMM, but safety and accessibility persist among the elements of apprehension: acceptability of this type of service risks being reduced if it is reserved for a small portion of the population ".
“The expected benefits from the use of these new technologies - says Guglieri - are varied: the improvement of response times in emergency situations, the reduction of traffic in urban areas and of emissions, as well as the creation of new jobs. The main technical challenges that await us concern batteries (the most efficient on the market today are able to support flights of no more than 30/40 minutes for aircraft with 2 passengers on board), airspace management, training of pilots, autonomy and economic feasibility ".
The Italian Roadmap
Carmela Tripaldi, R&D New Technologies and Advanced Director Italian Civil Aviation of Enac, gave explanations on the Italian Roadmap to follow and implement in the coming years, who identified the need to promote a strategy for the creation of the national ecosystem for Advanced Air Mobility . "Making available to the country a model of urban, integrated and intermodal air mobility, capable of providing advanced services to citizens, businesses and institutions and responding to the needs of territorial systems in the context of the digital and ecological transition, placing itself as a reference in the international context and accelerate the growth of a national industrial and technological fabric, seizing the opportunities offered by the AAM at a global level with the aim of implementing the country's competitiveness, also through the creation and enhancement of new professionals in the STEM field. These are the objectives of the 'Creation of the Italian Ecosystem for Advanced Air Mobility' project, which will soon start after the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between Enac and the Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digital Transition, which took place in December 2019 " Tripaldi explained.
At the end of the round table, the clear will of the three aerospace clusters of Lombardy, Campania and Piedmont emerged to want to collaborate with the aim of pooling know-how and skills in order to implement, at national level, the technologies already existing in the field of Advanced Air Mobility. With the aim of accelerating the development of large-scale Advanced Air Mobility as much as possible. "Many initiatives have been born at the district level: the purpose of this agreement between territories is to ensure that the activities that we are going to develop from here on are implemented with the greatest possible collaboration and synchrony, to ensure that at a national level is an undoubted benefit. The scenario is international: creating a Country System is necessary ”, concludes Angelo Vallerani.