SATE brings together an international consortium of industry partners, public sector bodies and academia who work with a range of regional businesses and stakeholders to apply state-of-the-art aviation technology to deliver targeted economic growth. 

Over the last year, we have held partner trials, published studies and reports, spoken at various events, and won some prestigious awards. We have summarised these below to give a flavour of the year.

ARC Aerosystems Trial

Along with Highlands and Islands Airports Ltd (HIAL), we welcomed consortium partner ARC Aerosystems to Wick John O’Groats Airport in October, where tethered trials were conducted with the ARC C-600 autonomous aircraft.

The C-600, designed and built by ARC Aerosystems, is the largest VTOL UAV in Europe with a wingspan of over eight metres, 100kg payload capacity, and the ability to travel up to 400km.

The aircraft is fitted with a cutting-edge fixed-wing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) design which eliminates the need for runways, making it perfectly suited to support the needs of rural communities in operations including mail deliveries, fisheries, and windfarms.

Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) Airlander

HAV announced the results of a first of its kind concept study into the role of Airlander, the world’s most efficient large aircraft, finding that it can deliver cost-effective, low-emission passenger transport and freight to the Highland and Island communities in the North of Scotland. 

The report highlights that Airlander could help to decarbonise regional travel, add freight capacity into the network and could also provide further economic growth through tourism. It also analyses the forecast dispatch availability given the imperative to maximise operations in the prevailing conditions with minimal delays. The report found that Airlander would provide a high dispatch availability when surveyed against historic weather data and can operate successfully from a range of airports, small island airfields and bodies of sheltered water.

The report summarised that Airlander is well-suited to deliver a new network offering to the Highlands and Islands. Airlander would be a beneficial addition to the transport ecosystem, which can create new opportunities for economic growth and the development of tourism in the region.

Airspace Change Developments

A study was completed for WP5 exploring the feasibility of establishing a trial ‘airspace test environment’ in the Orkney Islands, based on operations from Kirkwall Airport, referred to as the Trial Orkney Test Zone (TOTZ). The idea is that the TOTZ would support a range of Uncrewed Air System trials and operations including Beyond Visual Line of Sight operations in unsegregated airspace. Egis were contracted to conduct a comprehensive feasibility study to evaluate options for TOTZ implementation, and to identify the option most likely to achieve successful delivery of the WP5 objective. 

Funding Boost for SATE

Earlier this year, SATE received an additional £1.7 million funding boost through the addition of three new partners – ARC Aerosystems, Hybrid Air Vehicles and Cormorant SEAplanes – bringing access to new technologies to complement the existing offering, while demonstrating a wider range of sustainable aviation technology. 

2023 Events

Throughout the year we took part in various events and conferences at home and abroad, helping to raise awareness of the work we do and the opportunities for collaboration.

Jayne Golding, SATE Manager, attended the Zero Emission Regional Aviation Conference in Oslo in September. Jayne was invited to take part in a panel discussion on the topic of Public Service Obligations and innovation contracts for the regional market. The panel discussed different ways that contracts could be designed to work as incentives towards decarbonising aviation, sharing knowledge and lessons from across Scotland and Scandinavia.

Earlier this month, the first Future Flight Challenge Conference was held at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester, bringing together drones, advanced air mobility, and electric aviation sectors with delegates from industry, government officials, regulators, the NHS and emergency services, and local authorities. David Holden, Regional Sustainable Aviation Manager, presented SATE as part of a session focusing on FFC Phase 3 project highlights.

Lukas Princ, SATE Business Manager, also presented at various events, including the Destination Orkney Tourism Conference in November, discussing how sustainable aviation technologies can support other modes of transport and provide a new type of sightseeing for the tourism sector. This has led to an invitation to speak at the National Tourism Conference in 2024, further broadening SATE’s reach.

Other events we have attended and spoken at include:

• SATE presentation to the Island Centre for Net Zero
• ATI Conference – ATI Collaboration Award
• Participation at the Scottish Rural and Island Parliament
• Sustainability presentation to the British Aviation Group
• Presentation to the Youth Local Action Groups at the Kiln Corner, Orkney
• SATE presentation at Scotland’s Food & Drink supply chain event hosted by SAOS
• Participation in the Orkney Aviation Festival

2023 Awards

Aerospace & Defence Awards

SATE secured the Aerospace & Defence award at the seventh annual Collaborate to Innovate (C2I) awards which are led by The Engineer magazine.

UK-led engineering projects ranging from SATE to the world’s largest commercial electric vehicle development, as well as a revolutionary device for diagnosing prostate cancer, were amongst the winners at the prestigious awards ceremony.

One of the key benefits of this type of collaboration is that businesses (airports and airlines) often do not have the headroom to engage in fundamental research, and academia often lacks the harsh evaluation of the ‘coal face,’ but they can provide mutual benefit in this kind of endeavour.

Add to this the involvement of national and local government and their various agencies, and you have the triple helix necessary to both drive innovation and temper it against the anvil of real-world use.

Rural Transport Awards

HIAL’s former head of business development, Lynda Johnston, was awarded a Rural Transport Award from the Scottish Rural & Islands Transport Community for her work on SATE, during her final week in the role.

Lynda said of the award: “This is an award for the Sustainable Aviation Test Environment consortium team.  There is a range of brilliant people in the project, too many to mention, all with different motives driving their involvement but with a common aim to develop a sustainable regional aviation transport network.

“Collectively we are learning about current regional transport issues and how they could be addressed more sustainably in the future using a range of new aircraft. The UKRI funded Future Flight Challenge project has brought together the communities who will benefit from the technology, the aircraft developers, the regulators, the new fuel developers, and the HIAL Board have shown leadership by investing in the project to understand the airport infrastructure that will be required, and what the new systems will mean for HIALs business model going forward.”

ATI Award

SATE picked up the Team award at the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) Conference which took place in Birmingham last month.

The award celebrates the teams who are making the journey to net zero together. It recognises they are high performing, have strong relationships, navigate the ecosystem well and are delivery focused.

The ATI creates the technology strategy for the UK aerospace sector and funds world-class research and development, and is also funded by UKRI.

The SATE team assembled to demonstrate the next generation of air services, thereby ensuring airports operations are ready to support sustainable aviation requirements. In doing so, the aim is to improve regional connectivity to support remote and rural communities, improve business resilience, and support the UK Government’s aviation decarbonisation strategy, plus the Scottish Government’s ambition for a Highlands and Islands Net Zero Aviation Region by 2040.

Looking forward to next year

As SATE enters 2024, we are increasingly interested in how the various technologies can be integrated into regional transport systems to help improve connectivity across the region. We are looking forward to delving deeper into this area as we explore how SATE can contribute to the new Regional Transport Strategy for the Highlands & Islands.