If you build it, they will come. That’s the goal of Brent Lane and Laurie McKnight from Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Service.
In July 2024, the school was awarded a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission to assess the needs of more than 200 airports in Appalachia to handle Advanced Air Mobility planes, including manned electric aircraft and drones.
The pair visited 37 airports in 15 Appalachian counties to evaluate the technological and business feasibility of using electric aircraft.
Lane and McKnight met with a wide range of public officials, both elected and administrative, to draw attention to aviation’s role in their community.
“We focus not just on these new types of electric aircraft, but first and foremost on aviation itself, as it already serves their communities,” Lane said. “Through their local airports, the first thing to do was to engage with them about the role aviation is already playing in their community, and some of the benefits occurring through that local airport.”
“We saw an appreciation for aviation and a good deal of interest in the types of increased activity,” Lane continued. “The need to prepare these airports for different types of electric aircraft will require local government and public support. We need to address the priorities in those communities.”
McKnight says that one of the most mentioned services for many communities is using airports to assist in emergencies.
“Kentucky has a real need for this, given the number of weather-related disasters they’ve had in the past few years,” she said. “That terrain is rugged and hard to reach via local roads, especially if those roads have been damaged or blocked.”
Most of the airports in Appalachia currently lack the infrastructure to help power electric aircraft and the need for upgrades is recognized, according to the university researchers.
Ohio recently created an advanced aviation division housed under the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT). A study by ODOT’s research division estimated that investing in advanced air programs would generate more than $13 billion in economic impact and create 15,000 new jobs.
But there is little time to waste, according to the Ohio University researchers.
“Some of these airports are stuck in the 1990s, much less this century,” Lane said. “These 37 airports are in counties defined by ARC as distressed or at-risk in 2024. But our lessons apply to the 3,000 general aviation airports nationwide. Once again, what we find in Appalachia has applications well beyond our region.”
For more information: Ohio.edu
Waste of money, people will not have electric airplanes in any significant quantity.