Personal air vehicle

The emergence of this alternative to traditional ground transport methods has been enabled by unmanned aerial vehicle technologies and electric propulsion.

Barriers include aviation safety, airworthiness, operating costs, usability, airspace integration, aircraft noise and emissions, tackled first by small UAS certification then experience.

First off, synthetic vision electronic flight instrument systems (EFIS) as Highway in the sky (HITS) makes it much easier to control aircraft.

[5] The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) infrastructure is not currently capable of handling the increase in aircraft traffic that would be generated by PAVs.

On May 16, 1977, the New York Airways accident of a Sikorsky S-61 helicopter shuttle from John F. Kennedy International Airport, which landed on the roof of the Pan Am Building (now MetLife Building) when a landing gear collapsed and a detached rotor blade killed several people on the helipad and one woman on Madison Avenue, ending that business for decades almost around the world.

[10] For Sikorsky Innovations, the emerging $30 billion urban air mobility market needs safety at least as good as FAR Part 29 governing over 7,000 lb (3.2 t) helicopters.

By May 2018, Sikorsky flew an S-76 120 hours with full point-to-point, real time autonomous flight and terrain avoidance the hard way, with Level A software and redundancy, with a safety pilot.

The objective of each sector was to establish vehicle capability goals and the required technology investment strategies to achieve those breakthroughs.

[12] The difference in vehicle characteristics between PAVs and existing General Aviation single engine piston aircraft was set out in 2003 at an American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) conference.