CLEVELAND — It can be spotted soaring over Ohio anywhere from 500 feet above the ground all the way up to 30,000 feet.
NASA's $4 million aircraft has spent the past several months and is nearing completion of its first round of flights, which will help map out the future of aviation where airplanes, drones, air taxis and more can coexist as part of the NASA Advance Air Mobility Mission.
As NASA’s Casey Bakula points out, the way we look at air travel is about to change. Bakula is part of the team here at NASA Glenn in charge of helping design a highway for the sky.
"The companies that are really going after this market, they want to replace your daily commute with your car with a small aircraft," Bakula, tech lead for NASA's HMX and AMPS projects, explained. "Operators have very different ideas of how we can use the airspace from how we’re using it today, so it's really our job to get our feedback and put together that big picture view of how these markets can work together."
"More than the terrain, the weather here in Cleveland is perfect," NASA researcher Daniel Raible said.
That’s not a phrase you hear often, but that’s the truth from Raible, applauding the chaos that is Cleveland’s weather, which can consist of everyone from rain, cold, snow and wind from the lake.
Raible is also conducting tests with this $4 million research plane, specifically streaming 4k video and figuring out how that can be done to the Moon and back.
We don’t just report the initial story—we follow through to its conclusion. Read and watch our previous reporting on this story below and see more stories that we've followed through on here.
"What we’ve learned is that simulation is never sufficient," Raible said. "You had to get out there and build things and break things and iterated upon that. All the computer simulations in the world are a bit too perfect for real-world scenarios. If we’re flying blue skies every single day, then we’re not really stressing the technology. We need to make something that’s robust in all domains."
Last month, News 5 reported how hundreds of air taxis are set to be made right here in Ohio with Joby Aviation.
RELATED: Hundreds of flying taxis to be made in Ohio, home of the Wright brothers and astronaut legends
"It represents the future of aviation," Governor Mike DeWine said. “When you’re talking about air taxis, that’s the future. We find this very, very exciting — not only for the direct jobs and indirect jobs it’s going to create, but like Intel, it’s a signal to people that Ohio is looking to the future. This is a big deal for us.”
In 2021, News 5 took you to Springfield, Ohio where personal helicopters of sorts as well as unmanned vehicles and other testing is already underway as part of FlyOhio.
RELATED: FlyOhio helping Ohio beat out other communities to better use our 'totally open skies'
Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport received special permission from the FAA to fly unmanned and experimental aircraft up to 10,000 feet in the air and for 225 square miles, giving companies a playground to refine their technology and vehicles.
A 2021 report with the Ohio Department of Transportation's Research Program and Crown Consulting concluded that Ohio could see $13 billion worth of economic impact over 25 years by investing in the autonomous aircraft sector.
For Raible, another round of testing is slated for the beginning of 2024 as he helps build a connection strong enough to transmit 4k video seamlessly.
