SkyHwy — eVTOL Intelligence

WASHINGTON — In a move designed to cement U.S. leadership in the next generation of flight, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) has released its Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) National Strategy. Published on December 17, 2025—the 122nd anniversary of the Wright brothers' first flight—the 70-page document outlines a phased transition from experimental testing to a fully integrated, autonomous aerial transport network by 2035.

This strategy serves as a critical coordination tool for federal agencies, city planners, and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). For an industry that has long navigated a fragmented regulatory landscape, the new framework provides the most definitive timeline to date for the deployment of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in American cities.

The LIFT Framework: Phased Implementation

The DOT’s plan, developed by a 25-agency Interagency Working Group, is structured around the LIFT (Leverage, Initiate, Forge, and Transform) phases. Rather than anticipating an immediate overhaul of the National Airspace System (NAS), the strategy prioritizes a "crawl-walk-run" approach:

2026–2027 (Initiate): Focus on pilot programs and demonstrations using "contemporary" piloted eVTOLs.
2030 (Forge): Scaling to multiple urban and rural areas with quiet, powered-lift operations.
2035 (Transform): Transitioning toward high-density, fully autonomous flight in specific geographies.

2026 Pilot Programs and OEM Integration

A cornerstone of the 2026 agenda is the eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP). This program is designed to pair private-sector manufacturers with state and local governments to prove out specific routes and use cases before full FAA type certification.

Industry leaders Joby Aviation and Archer Aviation have already signaled intent to lead these trials. Joby, which has logged over 50,000 flight test miles, intends to use the eIPP to validate its "Superpilot" autonomous technology and refine airport-to-airport missions. Meanwhile, Archer has partnered with several municipalities—including an exclusive bid with Huntington Beach, California—to establish local operations teams and emergency response protocols. For these OEMs, the eIPP provides a supervised environment to generate the safety data required for commercial launch.

Infrastructure: Private Funding and Grid Constraints

The strategy delivers a clear message to investors and municipalities regarding infrastructure: the federal government will not lead the financing of vertiports. Instead, the DOT expects privately funded facilities, encouraged by public-private partnerships.

Near-term operations will rely on the 13,000 existing U.S. airports and heliports, modified to accommodate electric propulsion. However, the report identifies the electrical grid as a primary bottleneck. Vertiports will require significant power upgrades, with peak charging demands estimated between 300 kW and 1 MW per aircraft. The responsibility for securing this energy capacity falls largely on operators and local utilities rather than federal grants.

Regulatory and Airspace Modernization

The FAA’s role remains focused on safety and certification. The strategy highlights 40 specific recommendations, including:

Airspace Management: Transitioning toward automated, data-driven traffic management via third-party service providers.
Vertical Lift Guidance: Expanding vertiport design standards, specifically the Unified Vertical Lift Infrastructure Advisory Circular.
Pilot Training: Researching Simplified Vehicle Operations (SVO) to address the looming pilot shortage by making flight controls more intuitive.

The Path Ahead

The publication of the AAM National Strategy signals the end of the "conceptual" era for urban air mobility. By establishing 2027 as the target for initial commercial operations and 2035 for autonomy, the DOT has set a "sober and credible" pace that acknowledges the technical hurdles of noise, energy distribution, and community acceptance.

For the next phase, the industry's success will depend less on aircraft prototypes and more on the ability of local governments to integrate these flight paths into their existing transit ecosystems.