The K-UAM Grand Challenge begins its flight in the skies over Goheung, Jeollanam-do.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport announced that it will hold a flight demonstration event in Goheung, Jeollanam-do on the 3rd in conjunction with the K-UAM Grand Challenge, which is being promoted to realize Urban Air Mobility (UAM).

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has been preparing safety standards for operational areas such as mechanisms, communication systems, traffic management, and vertiports in preparation for the full-scale commercialization of the Grand Challenge (demonstration project). This event is being held as part of a consortium demonstration in which participating companies, such as aircraft and infrastructure, are in charge of each system.

For the Grand Challenge, 46 companies, led by the three mobile carriers, are participating in seven consortiums and single fields. The K-UAM Dream Team, which includes SKT, Korea Airports Corporation, Hanwha Systems, and T Map Mobility, will demonstrate SKT’s self-developed traffic management operation system, T mobility linkage service, and construction of a 5G airspace network for UAM. KT will demonstrate integrated operations such as Hyundai Motor Company’s Supernel, a traffic management service platform with Hyundai Engineering & Construction, and the establishment of a foundation for building an urban vertiport through vertiport design optimization. LGU+ will demonstrate with GS Engineering & Construction, Kakao Mobility, and Vertical Aerospace’s airframe VX4.

At this flight test site, the safety of the UAM airframe and communication system will be confirmed through preliminary tests and integrated operation verification will be performed.

This event is the first time that the public will be able to see UAM components such as the airframe, vertiport, and traffic management system operating organically and safely. You can directly see the airframe developed with domestic technology and the infrastructure such as the first vertiport and passenger terminal built in Korea for the K-UAM Grand Challenge in flight. ​In the actual Korean UAM operating environment, an operating scenario will be demonstrated with a domestically developed airframe, and a tour of the technology applied to the passenger terminal in the demonstration complex and the facility site including the integrated monitoring room and noise measurement will be conducted.

The aircraft rollout ceremony will be held for Hangwooyeon's UAM (OPPAV) and Boltline's SKYLA-V2. An exhibition that presents the development goals and visions of participating companies and organizations in the verification project, including aircraft and vertiport models as well as communication and traffic management programs, is scheduled to be open until the weekend. Hyundai Motor Company, Vertical Aerospace, and Beta Technologies will exhibit aircraft models, while Kakao Mobility (reservation platform), SKT (commercial communications network), Hanwha Systems (surveillance radar), Incheon International Airport Corporation, Daewoo Engineering & Construction, and Lotte Engineering & Construction (vertiport model) will also participate.

Baek Won-guk, Second Vice Minister of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said, “With the participation of leading domestic and foreign companies, the K-UAM Grand Challenge, which is drawing global attention, has made a historic leap forward,” and added, “We will strive to verify this in the world’s freest environment in harmony with the ‘Urban Air Traffic Act,’ which provides bold regulatory exceptions.” He also emphasized, “We will successfully complete the Grand Challenge and open the urban skies to the public by the end of 2025.”

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport will conduct a demonstration in a demonstration corridor connecting semi-urban and urban areas after the demonstration in Goheung, Jeollanam-do, and begin commercialization through analysis of demonstration data and provision of related technology and infrastructure to the private sector. Finally, it will support the final safety review and initial commercialization infrastructure in conjunction with R&D.