Air Taxis in West Chester, Ohio: The future is now, and its very exciting

It’s going to happen at this point anyway.  My bringing it up now is more of a formality of connecting the dots and explaining to anybody who will listen how the future economy under President Trump will look.  I have conversations about making Ohio the number one state for business-friendly conditions all the time.  I attend many seminars on economic development and Chamber of Commerce incentives for depressed areas looking to rebound.  And when I say the only thing holding back this technology is the FAA, politics has changed.  Deregulation under Trump will get stuffy bureaucrats out of the way, and a second wave of aviation and aerospace development will be unleashed.  The other day, I talked a lot about Hyperloop and how and why a terminal should be built in Monroe, Ohio. But today, I’m talking about an old idea that is about to be unleashed and create an all-new transportation mode: skycars, or more technically speaking, VTOL air taxis.  I can say from personal experience that Joby Aviation, up the road from West Chester and Liberty Township, is at the front of the market.  They have air taxis ready to go, built, tested, flushed out, and prepared for delivery to market in 2025/2026; essentially, all that is standing in the way is the FAA approval process.  Joby Aviation is making a piloted version, but they will quickly become fully automatic and will work by calling one on your phone and having them pick you up and perform just like an Uber.  The future is here, now.  All that needed to happen was that politics would have to get behind it.  We don’t already have these air taxis in use because the Biden administration was a slow and Marxist micromanager that stalled all these efforts.  If Trump had stayed in the White House in 2020, these Joby air taxis would have been out for a few years by now.  So once we get a Trump administration back in the White House and install a pro-business mindset back into America, Joby and a few other companies are going to move quickly, and technical innovation on this front will happen at a blistering pace. 

Knowing all that, I would propose that we get all the minds together in West Chester and Liberty Township and become the first areas in the world to develop official Sky Ports.  Abu Dhabi and China are already deep in development.  And Europe is already all over it.  But they don’t have Joby Aviation right down the road and a stable environment to perform the early day development of the technology, which could make Ohio the first to fly again.  Here’s how and why it would work.  For instance, there is a nice little piece of property across from Ikea in West Chester that is just big enough for a sky port, a mini runway kind of helipad where these air taxis would land and take off like a helicopter, but much quieter and with much more stable flight.  This always happens to me; people come and see me from out of town.  They stay at the many hotels and have to get back and forth between CVG and West Chester, and their biggest problem is the traffic down I-75, which gets back to the airport to catch their flight when doing business in West Chester.  This air taxi system would take all that worry away and improve life for many people. 

For instance, when business guests were ready to leave their hotel, they would walk or catch a little transport from their hotel to Sky Port by Ikea. Theoretically, a sky taxi would be waiting for them.  In this case, a piloted version of the Joby VTOL vehicle would be waiting for them just like an Uber, dialed up by their phone with the ticket, and everything would be paid.  The guests would arrive and get into the craft like a car.  The sky taxi would fly them down to the airport at CVG and land at the front of the terminal, likely on top of the parking garage there, and fly over all the traffic, making the trip in about 15 minutes, which usually takes over 50 minutes.  Another problem I have is bringing people from West Chester who are in town without a car to sporting events.  I typically pick them up and drive to the Great American Ballpark to attend a game for the evening.  Getting downtown with all the rush hour traffic is a pain in the neck.  It would be much better to get into an air taxi and fly straight to the stadium, land in a nice, safe place along the river, and get to the game in about 10 minutes instead of an hour during those peak hours of 5 to 6 PM.  When the game was over, the passengers would just let the air taxi service know you were about to leave, and they would come and pick you up just like an Uber driver now.  Only it would be a VTOL instead of a car.  The same air taxi service could be set up to get to Kings Island from all over Cincinnati.  It could also be set up to serve politicians from their districts directly to the Ohio Statehouse.  There are a vast number of immediate applications that would benefit immediately from the low price of freshly poured concrete. 

After the FAA permit process, the next barrier would be to win over the public.  So, the sooner people see these vehicles working and overcome their fear of flying, the more the concept will expand rapidly.  At first, it would be similar to a helicopter ride experience that you see in very safe tourist areas.  Only this air taxi concept is even safer and much quieter.  It would be at a small volume, maybe a few flights every hour throughout the peak hours of a business day.  But enough people are interested now to make that happen with the Joby Aviation vehicles right out of the box.  However, the flight frequency would quickly increase to a flight every couple of minutes, and even several flights from several pads at the Skyport would come and go all the time.  It will also greatly enhance the business climate wherever sports reside.  So, I think Ohio has a unique opportunity to be the first.  West Chester, precisely because of its hotels and business traffic, could be the first in the world to demonstrate this technology and benefit economically from the visionary approach.  I’m just connecting the dots here for the many people I know in this business who need to know about each other.  And to explain that this isn’t some far off Jetson’s fantasy concept.  I’ve been involved in these Skycars for over three decades now, so when I say that they are here, I can say it with confidence.  Air taxis are here; they will happen and will be the hottest ticket in town for the next half of a decade.  People will find them very convenient, safe, and pleasant.  And they will become nearly as common as a personal car in a very short time.  The VTOL market needed a president like Trump in the White House.  The rest was waiting for the permit approval, which is about to happen as you read this.  If not sooner. 

Rich Hoffman

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