Project Skyway is an ambitious plan to put Britain once again at the forefront of a transport revolution the likes of which it has not seen since the advent of the steam railway in the 18th century. Then, short lengths of track sprang up around the country allowing steam-powered locomotives to take coal from northern mines or wool and cotton from mill towns to near-by docks to be shipped around the world. But within just a few years those independent miles of track were part of a railway network which spanned the nation, allowing goods and people to travel distances in times hitherto unheard of. This transport revolution and the efficiencies it brought was key in Britain showing itself as an industrial powerhouse on a global scale for the next century. Two centuries on, Britain is on the point of another transport revolution. Drones have the potential to transport in a way our ancestors could never have imagined, but would have surely understood. Just as trains reduced transport times from days to hours, drones will reduce them from hours to minutes; using energy from renewable sources. This will allow efficient and timely inspection of roads and railways, airport and port operators to review infrastructure without dangerous or costly closures, and provide 'lanes' which will enable delivery drones operated by the likes of DHL, Amazon, and FedEx. And this is only the beginning. As the technology is proved through drone operations, more users and use cases will emerge. eVTOL vehicles, will be able to safely cross towns and cities whilst sharing the sky with other manned and unmanned aviation. This revolution has begun with the Arrow Drone Zone (ADZ), under FF2 'Project Xcelerate,' and serves as an important proving ground, providing a route to CAA certification. Using Arrow technology as its foundation -- allowing manned and unmanned aviation to share the sky harmoniously - Project Skyway envisages a nationwide network of ADZs spanning the length and breadth of Britain, a superhighway-network-in-the-sky, providing a critical digital infrastructure which will enable the world's first truly national, open and competitive drone economy. The project's collaborative approach brings together like-minded, future-focused businesses and organisations which are leaders in their specialist fields -- from drone manufacturers, mobile and satellite connectivity providers to fleet operators, sensor manufacturers and airspace managers - to help realise the vision and deliver it to the consortia's first customers.

Project Skyway is an ambitious plan to put Britain once again at the forefront of a transport revolution the likes of which it has not seen since the advent of the steam railway in the 18th century. Then, short lengths of track sprang up around the country allowing steam-powered locomotives to take coal from northern mines or wool and cotton from mill towns to near-by docks to be shipped around the world. But within just a few years those independent miles of track were part of a railway network which spanned the nation, allowing goods and people to travel distances in times hitherto unheard of. This transport revolution and the efficiencies it brought was key in Britain showing itself as an industrial powerhouse on a global scale for the next century. Two centuries on, Britain is on the point of another transport revolution. Drones have the potential to transport in a way our ancestors could never have imagined, but would have surely understood. Just as trains reduced transport times from days to hours, drones will reduce them from hours to minutes; using energy from renewable sources. This will allow efficient and timely inspection of roads and railways, airport and port operators to review infrastructure without dangerous or costly closures, and provide 'lanes' which will enable delivery drones operated by the likes of DHL, Amazon, and FedEx. And this is only the beginning. As the technology is proved through drone operations, more users and use cases will emerge. eVTOL vehicles, will be able to safely cross towns and cities whilst sharing the sky with other manned and unmanned aviation. This revolution has begun with the Arrow Drone Zone (ADZ), under FF2 'Project Xcelerate,' and serves as an important proving ground, providing a route to CAA certification. Using Arrow technology as its foundation -- allowing manned and unmanned aviation to share the sky harmoniously - Project Skyway envisages a nationwide network of ADZs spanning the length and breadth of Britain, a superhighway-network-in-the-sky, providing a critical digital infrastructure which will enable the world's first truly national, open and competitive drone economy. The project's collaborative approach brings together like-minded, future-focused businesses and organisations which are leaders in their specialist fields -- from drone manufacturers, mobile and satellite connectivity providers to fleet operators, sensor manufacturers and airspace managers - to help realise the vision and deliver it to the consortia's first customers.

Urban Air Mobility is the future of travel, but before this technology is ready for the public to use we need to test the system as a whole in a real life environment. We will create this demonstration environment - a European first - within the controlled airspace of international airports in the South West of UK. It will allow us to identify and fill technological gaps and establish viable markets and business cases for these services. The project will assess the demand for UAM services in the South-West UK by developing the use cases for this technology, then evaluating the integration and impact on the wider transportation system and the benefits to cities and residents. We will also undertake social research into public perceptions and attitudes to eVTOL aircraft so we can allay any concerns and ensure the public see the benefits of the technology. To future proof flight operations we will establish an automated UAM/ATM traffic management system to accommodate high volumes of users in tightly controlled airspace, this will facilitate the entry of new, diverse vehicles into an already complex communications environment along with establishing robust safety cases to meet evolving certification standards. We will also consider the whole UAM ecosystem, including infrastructure and contactless passenger processing and security which has become even more necessary with the recent worldwide developments. The project will culminate in a series of live flying demonstrations, over the Severn Estuary area, of advanced drone operations in preparation for eVTOL flights in Phase 3\. This along with outreach and public engagement will provide a compelling demonstration of Urban Air Mobility, securing the South-West of UK's status as a worldwide aerospace hub. Our consortium is led by Atkins and comprises: Vertical Aerospace (eVTOL aircraft developers); AiRXOS (GE Aviation subsidiary, UTM and regulatory experts); Altitude Angel (UTM providers); Connected Places Catapult; Cranfield University; NATS; Neuron (Conspicuity systems); Skyports (Vertiport developers) and WECA (regional government). We have also secured collaboration with Bristol Airport, Cardiff Airport and Uber Air.

XCelerate partners' goal is to take UTM systems out into the real world, by providing a repeatable framework that towns, cities and wider can follow in order to open up portions of the skies and enable suitable safe BVLOS operations, including highly automated (no-pilot-in-the-loop) scenarios. Project XCelerate will be enabled by a network of existing and new technologies underpinned by Altitude Angel's proven GuardianUTM OS, incorporating existing air traffic management and communications systems and augmented by new technology, such as 5G, cyber secure Drone Remote ID as well as Drone Detection and Surveillance/Counter capability with the most advanced aviation infrastructure in Europe. Through Future Flight, BT will leverage their market leading communications experience, network, and infrastructure to enable drones to have greater connectivity and lower latency for quicker transfer of high precision data. The use of 4G/5G as primary or backup infrastructure will ensure drones remain connected for greater situational awareness, positional accuracy, and collision avoidance. This is a key enabler to unlock drones to fly BVLOS operations. To ensure location and position of drones is available at all times and to increase reliability, Project XCelerate will establish secondary systems including; Satellite (Galileo), 4G/5G networks as backup. In presenting the Arrow Drone Zone (ADZ) , we will establish a repeatable pattern for safe automated BVLOS operations, with automated drones facilitated by an independent surveillance and tracking system (including surveillance by humans in-the-loop) for low level aircraft along with separation and deconfliction services via the UTM system to assure safe operation in a manner that is achievable now and fully scalable in line with the industry growth rate. The ADZ points the way, going from concept to routine operations, by providing the physical and digital infrastructure necessary, coupled with complete concept of operations, to create 'automated drone zones' that are fully connected into aviation management systems and paradigms. By bringing together BT's strength in connectivity and national assets (i.e. reliable, secure, high bandwidth, low-latency radio and fixed connectivity; digital and physical infrastructure), with leading partners including; Altitude Angels' experience in UTM and ADZ frameworks, combined with leading drone service providers HeroTech8 and Skyports, public acceptance researchers from Myriad - a collaborative team of recognised academic experts, cyber security provider Angoka and end user experts SkyBound Rescuer (Emergency Response) and Dronestream (NHS), we are powerfully placed to realise the world's first live commercial UTM. XCelerate will establish certainty to the regulator, public, and the drone industry on the scalability and safety of routine BVLOS flights.

The vision for the Airspace of the Future (AoF) project is to enable routine operational drone services in a safe coordinated environment on a regional and national basis in cognisance of realistic end user requirements; validated by robust business cases, simulation, stakeholder and public engagement; underpinned by an integrated transportation model with aviation at its core and an exploitation roadmap for the UK. The key deliverables of AoF are as follows recognising that activities will transition from the development into demonstration phase: 1. Develop the rules, system of systems and operational safety cases to allow mixed use airspace by manned and unmanned traffic, 2. Develop a virtual experimentation environment and digital twins to test new rules, processes, systems, technology and operating concepts rapidly at scale, 3. Establish a national test and evaluation facility for commercial unmanned vehicles with representative operational environments which are digitally trusted and secure, 4. Develop customer use cases for large-scale virtual and live demonstration in an expanded and open access environment during Future Flight Challenge (FFC) Phase 3, and 5. Develop a blueprint for the future national airspace structures and ground infrastructure. The innovative and new capabilities to deliver the AoF project are: 1. Enable unsegregated Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) and complex autonomous flights, 2. Establish a Live, Virtual and Constructed (LVC) test environment at Cranfield to support the regulatory system of system safety case, 3. Commission an incremental national test environment with the regulatory and local authorities at Cranfield and expand to explore more complex ground and airspace challenges for the use cases to enable commercially viable operations at scale, 4. Develop innovative surveillance and traffic management capabilities to safely manage airspace interaction with current systems, and 5. Develop a future airspace blueprint while balancing the existing Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems, future Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) systems, digital trust of users and equipment, cyber resilience of infrastructure and data connectivity. The AoF builds on investment in UK Digital Aviation Research and Technology Centre and UK National BVLOS Experimentation Corridor. Research by the members includes Open Access UTM Framework project for the DfT and regulatory activities in the CAA Innovation 'Sandbox'. The AoF consortium has the capacity, skills and world-leading domain expertise, knowledge and facilities to deliver this innovative project which has export potential. This project will drive growth, innovation and accelerate adoption of the air mobility sector and the clean growth challenge.

Fly2Plan - _Enabling a new model aviation data system-of-systems_ seeks to develop a new model for aviation data exchange to allow new entrants in urban air mobility and autonomous operations to participate. By researching the use of modern and emerging internet technologies of public cloud infrastructure and distributed ledger technology, the decentralised operating models built over generations of pioneering aviation discovery can be preserved, whilst transforming operating resilience and costs for the community. Fly2Plan directly addresses the following themes: * ATM&UTM: Fly2Plan vision is to develop a set of open-source Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) technologies and platform that underpin all aspects of airport, ATM, UTM, flight and UAV operations based on distributed ledger technology such as Blockchain. * Digital Infrastructure: solution for the transformation of legacy systems into agile, on-cloud interoperable platforms, to enable secure plug-and-play interactions between partners in the ecosystem. * Digital Communication Systems: as digital data and voice communication systems mature in the ATC environment, a natural evolution to more data traffic and less voice will occur. Fy2Plan offers the tools in order to enable this transformation. * Viable, challenging, use cases: a variety of users will benefit from Fly2Plan technology: drone operators, traffic controllers, UTM platform providers, ANSPs, airlines, airports, military, baggage handling providers, ground handling providers... As part of this, end users are represented within the consortium and the rest have been approached during proposal preparation to gather their insights and needs and will be part of WP5 conversations to refine use cases. There are several of them already being considered: 1. Flight Plan and Operation of Autonomous UAV BVLOS in non-segregated air space 2. New Capacity Model definition, with headroom quantified 3. Trajectories management, enabling fuel burn reduction in stacks and rewarding excellence in planning. 4. Vehicle technologies enablement -- autonomous flight (UAVs, eVTOLs, automated aircraft,...) will not happen if there is no provision of data such as flight data (FIXM), aeronautical info (AIXM) and weather (WIXM) from an open, reliable system-of-systems as the one Fly2Plan will develop. The Consortium is well balanced and formed by thirteen partners from across multiple sectors and disciplines. Within these partners, big corporates, start-ups and research institutions are included: * Operations: Heathrow Airport, IAG, Consortiq, Altitude Angel, Cranfield University, NATS * Technology: SITA, IBS, Snowflake Software, TEKTowr, Rockport Software * Research: Oxford University, Cranfield University * Product Management Office: Digital Catapult. The project is divided into five costed 'Industrial research' work packages. * WP1 -- Product Design and Project Management * WP2 -- Governance model definition * WP3 -- Development of the new open-source DLT platform\] * WP4 -- Trust Assurance Mechanisms * WP5 -- Communication, IPR strategy and Phase III preparation The project has obtained letters of support from relevant stakeholders as: Eurocontrol, ACI, UAE GCAA, Gatwick Airport, Microsoft and the Industry Resilience Group interested in the value Fly2Plan could unlock for them and want to monitor the progress of the project. The project has a total duration of 15 months and total cost of £4,670,932, where partners are co-funding 51%.