Nearly every time Hopper Smith refreshes his web browser, he says some breakthrough in aviation pops up on his news feed.

That both amazes and delights the state of Oklahoma’s director of aerospace and defense.

“I get an idea what it must have been like at around the turn of the 20th century, at the dawn of fixed-wing aviation,” Smith says. “Back then, I’m sure it seemed like every month there was another invention or innovation that wowed people.”

Today, these sources of high-altitude astonishment often involve unmanned aircraft systems (UAS), or drones, a sector in which the Tulsa region and Oklahoma are excelling. To note:

The state of Oklahoma is ranked first in the United States in drone readiness, according to a George Mason University study released in 2022.

Oklahoma State University is home to the Unmanned Systems Research Institute, which was the first in the nation to receive approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to fly an unmanned, fixed-wing aircraft swarm within national airspace.

In 2019, the FAA in 2019 gave the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma one of the first BVLOS (beyond visual line of sight) waivers to fly in the 54-square-mile BVLOS corridor on its test range at Daisy Ranch near Durant. By 2024, the Nation hopes to have FAA approval for BVLOS operations throughout its entire 11,000-square-mile reservation.

And in 2022, the Tulsa made national headlines in the sector when it was awarded $38.2 million for the Tulsa Regional Advanced Mobility (TRAM) Corridor project, funded by the U.S. Economic Development Administration’s Build Back Better Regional Challenge.

RIDING THE RIGHT WAVE

Led by the Indian Nations Council of Governments (INCOG) and designed to lure and support growth in advanced mobility in the area, the corridor proposes four projects. One of them is the establishment of a 114-nautical-mile, BVLOS commercial flight corridor linking OSU, Osage and Tulsa facilities, and another is the creation of the LaunchPad Research and Technology Center at OSU-Tulsa, which will focus on developing new technologies to meet advanced mobility industry needs.

Officials claim the entire corridor will result in 30,000 to 40,000 jobs — equal to about $3.5 billion to $5 billion in economic activity — over the first two to three years.

“Most folks who aren’t from Oklahoma don’t know realize how long and rich the history is in aerospace,” Smith says. They don’t think of Oklahoma as cutting-edge aerospace. But once I mention the attributes and capabilities that we have, both historically and forward-looking, that opens up their eyes a little bit.

“Oklahoma is extraordinarily well-positioned and is taking off in the advanced mobility industry. We’re all riding the right wave at the right time at the right place.”

SKYWAY36 LANDS DRONE BUSINESS

Cresting that wave in Tulsa this spring was WindShape, a Swiss-based drone testing company.

Relocating its U.S. operations from New York state, WindShape announced in April that it would be partnering with the Osage Nation to open a roughly 19,000-square-foot drone testing and validation facility at the Skyway36 Droneport and Technology Innovation Center in Tulsa.

“It’s another indication that Oklahoma is doing things well when you have a company that is already is established in the U.S. is finding Oklahoma to be a preferable place to do business,” Smith says. “It’s another indication that a lot of the reforms that we’ve made in the state and the Tulsa community to invite business are gaining traction.”

WindShape will use its `Windshaper’ technology to create an indoor, free-flight laboratory, simulating natural wind and weather profiles, according to Guillaume Catry, company co-founder and CEO. The facility will encompass eight specialized labs, each designed to test and validate different drone systems.

These will include a climate lab for assessing weather resilience, a propulsion lab to validate propulsion units and two free-flight activity labs equipped with motion-tracking cameras, GPS generators and other digital tools.

“As we’re developing a new business and a new solution for a growing industry, we have to make sure we’re setting up in a state or in a place where there is a relevant strategy,” says Catry, speaking on a video call from Geneva, Switzerland. “Tulsa and the region have a great strategy.”

With the help of cash and infrastructure from the Osage Nation, WindShape will spend the next year building out operations at Skyway 36.

“The new WindShape Tulsa test facility is a unique and much needed resource for the nascent Advanced Aerial Mobility sector,” Jamey Jacob, director of the Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education and Counter-UAS Center of Excellence at Oklahoma State University, says in a statement. “I am very excited to work with their team and use the WindShape concept to benefit our customers, government and commercial alike. I’m a big proponent of their design, and their services will provide critical testing and evaluation capabilities required to push adoption forward across the industry.”

PARTNERING FOR PROGRESS

While INCOG is serving as the lead institution for the coalition’s efforts to build the corridor, it will work with many partners, including Tulsa Innovation Labs (TIL), Tulsa Ports, OSU, Osage LLC, City of Tulsa, PartnerTulsa and the Tulsa Regional Chamber.

Of the $38.2 million, four-year federal grant, $13.7 million will go to OSU, $5.2 million for the LaunchPad Center and $8.5 million for the flight corridor, according to records provided by PartnerTulsa.

The balance will be earmarked for the TRAM project’s other two components: workforce training ($2.9 million to Tulsa Community Foundation) and upgrades to the Tulsa Port of Inola ($22.3 million to the City of Tulsa-Rogers County Port Authority).

The port is building a new wastewater treatment facility, so the industrial park is “pad-ready” for high-tech transportation systems.

A ribbon cutting is scheduled June 30 for Oklahoma Aerospace Institute for Research and Education’s LaunchPad Center for Advance Air Mobility, which is working to hire an executive director, says Jennifer Hankins, deputy managing director of Tulsa Innovation Labs.

The Center will pair OSU’s research in unmanned systems with industry-defined research topics, entrepreneurship support and community engagement programs to address challenges in the advanced mobility sector.

TECH HUB PUSH

Tulsa Innovation Labs, pioneered by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, seeks to position Tulsa as a tech hub.

“What we’re looking ahead to are those entrepreneurial support programs, building in a fellowship program,” Hankins says. “We have a key consortium of venture capital partners who have agreed to wrap arms around researchers and students.

“What we’re frankly most excited about is the fact that the LaunchPad sits in the historic Greenwood District. A lot of efforts coming out of Launchpad will be indeed community engagement, making sure, for example, that high school students know what’s happening at the Launchpad, know how to access us. And then of course, providing mentorship all along the way.”

The global commercial drone market size was estimated at $29.86 billion in 2022 and is expected to expand at compound annual growth rate of 38.6% from 2023 to 2030, according to global market research company Grand View Research.

Drones are used for many purposes, including filming, emergency response and getting goods and services to difficult-to-access places.

“We are really marrying together the whole value chain here, all the way from the tech to vehicles to the component supplies and the manufacturing that we know our region is so good at,” Hankins says of the TRAM Corridor.

“What we love most about it is that none of this is unrealistic for Tulsa. We really leaned hard into our region’s MRO (maintenance, repair and operations/overhaul) background, all of those skills, those knowledge bases, those companies. This cluster is allowing us to kind of button it up and move it 10 years ahead of schedule.”

Photo courtesy of WindShape