Appalachian Regional Commission Preparing for Electric Aircraft

A group of researchers at Ohio University has received a $500,000 grant to study what airports in the Appalachian areas of Ohio, Kentucky, and North Carolina must do to prepare for electric aircraft.

There are more than 200 airports in rural areas of Appalachia not served by commercial airlines. Instead they are used by smaller aircraft for the usual purposes of general aviation: delivery of smaller shipments of supplies especially medical supplies, emergency as well as non-emergency transportation, agricultural aerial applications, and so on.

Brent Lane, senior executive with the university’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs points out that a major challenge is the lack of electric utility capacity in much of the region.

He said, “These small airports lack the electric utility capacity not just to charge an airplane, but to charge a car. Or for that matter, to run the coffee pot while the air conditioner is on.”

Another challenge is the lack of awareness of what the existing airports do for communities already because people simply don’t notice them: “When I talk to somebody about these electric airplanes, I start by telling them aviation is already important to your community and you don't see it because it's not the type that gets a ticket. You and I could be completely oblivious to it because it doesn’t serve commercial airline passengers.”

Referring to electric planes, Lane said, “[They’re] a huge infrastructure asset. And these more mobile, more efficient forms of aviation are going to allow us to get more use out of them. We could deliver things faster and to more places that otherwise are isolated by limited ground transportation”

The grant funds will be augmented with $176,590 in matching funds. The money will enable the researchers to work with state departments of aviation to develop a plan to integrate new aviation technologies at smaller airports in 36 distressed and at-risk Appalachian counties in Ohio, Kentucky, and North Carolina.

FMI:  www.arc.gov/, www.ohio.edu/