GoAERO has created the GoAERO Awards, offering more than $2 million in cash prizes to the best thinkers, creators and inventors who build emergency response aircraft and usher in a new era of disaster and relief response.
With autonomy, speed and precision, GoAERO is looking for bright, bold and brave individuals who will change the way disaster relief and response is done.
why now?
In the United States alone, nearly 4.5 million people live in "ambulance deserts," and when a medical crisis occurs, people in these areas often have to wait more than 25 minutes for emergency services to arrive.
In 2022, more than 380 natural disasters will occur around the world, affecting 185 million people and killing more than 30,000. From 2001 to 2018, approximately 14.4 billion acres of land were destroyed by wildfires around the world.
In 2022, nearly 55 million people around the world will be affected by floods, injured or left homeless.
Part of the reason for the global competition is to create an emergency response aircraft that can reach people at risk and fight disasters wherever they are.
now is the time
Today's new technologies are enabling simpler, more reliable, and more versatile aircraft configurations. Battery electric technology has enabled the distributed propulsion configuration that is the core of eVTOL vehicles. For example, helicopters are not available to all emergency personnel due to acquisition and operating costs, facility requirements, and pilot training.
What if all emergency personnel had air combat capabilities that enabled them to save lives through their compact size and autonomous operation?
Why a competition?
Each emergency response aircraft is designed to hold one person (using mannequin stand-ins for human occupants), but what it looks like or how it functions is It's up to the user. The company hails the innovative design, which works safely in both crowded cities and rural areas. Aircraft need to be flyable and trailerable so they can be quickly deployed in the field, yet productive enough to continue working reliably and efficiently, day in and day out. It must be versatile enough to fly in any theater or in a variety of environments, with the precision and agility to react and adapt to unpredictable situations.
Saving lives is what this competition is all about, which is why it culminates in a final fly-off event featuring five missions applicable to a variety of real-world scenarios, including:
Deliver emergency personnel to the scene in a dense urban environment (buildings, signs, power lines, tight spaces)
Rescue the injured from under the forest canopy
Delivering water and food to communities cut off by natural disasters
Rescue victims from a traffic accident that stopped traffic
evacuating flood victims
Landing on earthquake debris or uneven terrain
Emergency transport of patient
Transport (or retrieve) a firefighter from a burning mountainside
Delivering smoked food and AEDs to the windows of high-rise buildings
Rescue a drowning person on the shore or rescue a swimmer caught in rapids
Initial extinguishing of wildfires
Rescue a person who fell through the ice on a frozen lake
Rescue from the roof of a high-rise building
Transporting emergency patients to hospitals, and transporting blood and organs from nearby hospitals.
Rescue in urban tunnels and remote caves
Discovery/identification/observation of emergencies
Role as an extension of the fire engine's ladder
Additionally, it is robust enough to withstand difficult conditions such as bad weather, chaotic air traffic, unknown terrain, and unpredictable obstacles and environments.
When life is at stake, the difference between victory and tragedy often lies in the ability to move toward danger rather than away from it. Overcome the crisis and reach out to those in need. And when the stakes are too great, or the distances too dangerous for the bravest of souls, the company uses intelligence and technology to overcome them.
That's why we're introducing this global competition to reward great innovation in emergency response flight.