A method to determine the availability and performance of fixed-wing air taxis in real weather conditions for regional air mobility within Germany

The success of an on-demand air taxi transportation system depends, in part, on its availability during daily operations. To further analyze such a system, this paper introduces a method for determining the availability and performance of air taxis under real weather conditions. In the availability analysis, mainly the fulfillment of the visual meteorological conditions minima (VMC) is investigated, and in the performance analysis, it is checked if the performance is sufficient to operate in the given weather conditions. Therefore, the integration of weather data from the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and real trajectories into the mission analysis tool of the aircraft preliminary design software Multidisciplinary Integrated Conceptual Aircraft Design and Optimization Environment (MICADO) for small aircraft is carried out for the first time. This allows the estimation of the performance of air taxis under real weather and operating conditions already at the aircraft preliminary design stage and potential technical deficits can be identified at an early design stage. Two single engine, fixed-wing air taxi designs, one with a hybrid-electric powertrain and one with an all-electric powertrain, are investigated in this paper. The results show that the availability is strongly limited by the VMC minima). The maximum availability of the short reference flight route between Nuernberg and Egelsbach is 41.78 % and the maximum availability of the long reference flight route between Augsburg and Moenchengladbach is 20.48 %. The availability of the hybrid-electric air taxi is not limited, as all investigated flights under sufficient VMC can be performed with this aircraft while complying with the required reserves. However, the availability of the all-electric air taxis is limited due to its performance. Because of adverse wind conditions, not all flights investigated under sufficient VMC can be performed with the all-electric air taxi while complying with the required reserves, as the energy demand is too high. For the all-electric air taxi operating on the short reference flight route, a 13.2 % increase in gravimetric battery energy density (GBED) is needed to ensure sufficient performance. The findings indicate the necessity of considering the real operating conditions in the preliminary design of small aircraft.

Subjects

Air taxi | Availability | Fixed wing | Weather conditions

DDC Class

629.1: Aviation

621.3: Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering

551: Geology, Hydrology Meteorology

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publishedVersion

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https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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s13272-025-00807-4.pdf

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3.01 MB

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Adobe PDF

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A method to determine the availability and performance of fixed-wing air taxis in real weather conditions for regional air mobility within Germany