Australian vertipad technology tackles the primary barriers blocking the air taxi revolution – downwash and outwash safety. Skyportz Australia announced the commercial launch of Aeroberm, a patented modular vertipad system, in a simultaneous global debut at VFS Forum 82 in West Palm Beach and Rotortech 2026 on the Gold Coast.

The industry will soon have electric air taxis. But where can they land?

Tens of billions of dollars have been invested in eVTOL aircraft. Yet without a dense, affordable network of landing infrastructure, none of that investment can deliver on its promise. Limiting deployment to existing airports and heliports produces nothing more than an expensive evolution of helicopter services. The transformative vision — aviation on demand, at the density of ride-sharing — requires vertipads where people actually are: on buildings, in suburbs, at regional hubs. That infrastructure does not exist. Four critical barriers are preventing it from being built.

Clem Newton-Brown, Founder, Aeroberm and Skyportz Australia commented: "You can't build an aviation network without places to land. Right now, other than legacy helipads, we don't have them.Noise, fire, outwash, cost — these aren't engineering curiosities. They're the reason vertiports aren't being built. Aeroberm addresses all four.Many major cities are planning for air taxis, yet almost none have figured out the landing infrastructure approvals process. That's the opportunity."

Bespoke vertiport construction costs are prohibitive for most developers. Aeroberm's off the shelf, modular, deployable design brings vertipad infrastructure within reach for property owners, developers, and regional operators.

Downwash and outwash

The FAA's Engineering Brief 105A sets a 34.5 mph outwash boundary threshold. Meeting that standard on conventional tarmac demands vast buffer zones — land that doesn't exist in mature cities or exists only at prohibitive cost. Aeroberm's fractal panels redirect and dissipate outwash, dramatically shrinking the required safety footprint.

Noise

eVTOL aircraft are quiet at altitude. They are not quiet at take-off and landing. Aeroberm's fractal panel technology reduces acoustic impact at the vertipad — a prerequisite for community acceptance in dense urban environments.

Fire safety

Lithium-ion thermal runaway is a dealbreaker for building owners being asked to host vertiports. Aeroberm's integrated immersion-based "dunk tank" system contains and neutralises battery fires — protecting surrounding tenants and eliminating the extended evacuations that would make vertipad hosting commercially and reputationally untenable.

The Science Behind the System

The Aeroberm system is underpinned by peer-reviewed computational fluid dynamics research conducted at Swinburne University — the first CFD modelling of fractal surface geometry applied to eVTOL ground operations, establishing a new benchmark for vertipad safety and amenity performance. The research will be presented at VFS Forum 82 in West Palm Beach by Swinburne researcher Andrew Che and founder Clem Newton-Brown, and simultaneously at Rotortech 2026 on the Gold Coast by Professor Justin Leontini of Swinburne University.