Video: NASA, Moog humming along on air taxi noise tests

Air taxis hold the promise to revolutionize air transportation. NASA is working to make this vision a reality, collaborating with industry to reduce aircraft noise in our communities.

Quiet flight will be especially important when air taxis and drones take off and land in future airports called vertiports that can be integrated into both rural and urban communities. So, NASA is providing industry with the tools they need to predict noise as they’re designing their vehicles, well before they would apply for certification with the Federal Aviation Administration to fly in the national airspace.

In summer 2023, researchers from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland traveled to Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Ohio to test an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) taxi produced by Moog. NASA’s team acquired data from the eVTOL during departure, landing, and while it hovered at 60 feet. A Moog operator remotely piloted the aircraft from a nearby ground station.

This was NASA’s second round of testing with Moog. In 2022, NASA researchers acquired noise data during an initial round of piloted testing, during which the Moog vehicle hovered in one location.

NASA will use the data from both tests to improve and validate noise prediction tools. The agency will provide both the tools and the dataset to U.S. industry to help with the design of quiet air taxis and drones.

This research is conducted by NASA’s Revolutionary Vertical Lift Technology (RVLT) project of the agency’s Advanced Air Vehicles Program. RVLT supports NASA’s Advanced Air Mobility Mission, which is delivering data to guide the industry’s development of electric air taxis and drones.