Drones and drone technology will change our everyday lives. They may soon be more visible in the skies, ranging from delivery drones to air taxis. But in order for drone flights to become a part of everyday life in the coming decades, clearly defined regulations, flight corridors, and safe air traffic management (ATM) for new airspace users are needed. After all, conventional air traffic and future uncrewed aircraft must operate smoothly and reliably side by side in a safe manner. Flight tests are essential for designing and testing realistic unmanned aircraft system traffic management (UTM) for uncrewed air transport. To this end, a series of large-scale demonstrations (VLDs) have taken place throughout the year within the framework of the EU project CORUS-XUAM. For the first time, Volocopter’s VoloDrone flew at the National Test Center for Unmanned Aerial Systems of the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR). At Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport, the focus was on contingency management in the event of unforeseen conflict scenarios. The tests flew two scenarios for urban areas in London and Frankfurt/Main. On 30 November 2022, the multi-national cooperating research team of DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, DLR, Droniq, NATS and Volocopter presented the flight tests to the guests.
