1. Introduction:

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Airport Safety Research and Development (R&D) Section (ANG-E261) is inquiring to procure for a contractor to perform a Vertiport Design Research Support.

2. Incumbent Contractor:

Woolpert INC

3. Nature of Competition:

The acquisition strategy for the procurement has not been determined at this time; however, either an unrestricted competition, set-aside, or noncompetitive award may be chosen depending on the responses to the market survey.

4. General Information

• This is not a Screening Information Request or Request for Proposals of any kind;
• The FAA is not seeking or accepting unsolicited proposals;
• The FAA will not pay for any information received or costs incurred in preparing the response to the market survey; and
• Any costs associated with the market survey submittal is solely at the interested vendor’s expense

5. North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is 541715- Research and Development in the Physical, Engineering, and Life Sciences (except Nanotechnology and Biotechnology) with a size standard of 1,000 employees.

6. Submittal Requirements Interested companies must provide the following information:

a. Capability Statement demonstrating the capability to perform the requirements in the attached Draft Statement of Work (SOW).

The responses for this Capability Statement may be used as the basis for a restricted competition. Therefore, we encourage any entity contemplating participating in a competition to supply these services to respond to this inquiry for capability statements.

The development of Vertiport Design Standards will establish guidance that ensures the safe operation of Vertical Take Off and Landing (VTOL) aircraft at United States vertiports. The U.S. Government, in the form of multiple Executive Agencies and the Congress, desires these safety standards to be published by the end of 2025. Therefore, a contract to collect operational performance data, as outlined in the associated SOW, needs to begin as early as possible to complete the data collection by the early 2025. The data collection must be completed in that timeframe to allow for the regulatory process to be accomplished in the desired timeframe.

Each Capability Statement should address all the following points:

• The protocol or methodology necessary to complete the requirements and tasks outlined in the SOW. You should also provide examples of previous experience in operational aircraft performance data collection projects demonstrating the implementation of your protocol/methodology of applying your technical expertise to develop project plans, coordinate activities, conduct testing, data analysis, and present findings within operational areas of airports. Any activities involving the federal government, or the development of advisory circulars, should also be included.

• Specify the type of information on the data that would be necessary to collect, and the necessary equipment and/or sensors, to accomplish the tasks outlined in the SOW.

• Provide your approach to accessing and protecting intellectual property and proprietary information from multiple Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) following the requirements of the SOW. This approach should be supplemented by examples of previous successful agreements with OEMs to access and protect their proprietary information and intellectual property. A non-exclusive list of potential OEMs includes:

1. Archer
2. BETA Technologies
3. Electra
4. Joby
5. Lilium
6. Vertical Aerospace
7. Volocopter
8. Wisk

• With the potential for international testing of OEM aircraft, in areas such as Europe, provide a description of how you would coordinate such a test, the access and agreements that you would require to conduct the testing, and any additional time necessary to accomplish the tasks outlined in the SOW in locations outside of the continental United States and Alaska.

• There is a potential requirement for multiple simultaneous evaluations of OEM aircraft at separate geographic locations. Please describe, and quantify, your capacity to test at multiple different locations across the continental U.S. simultaneously. Please describe what constrains your maximum testing capacity and any potential timelines necessary to increase your testing capacity.

• As part of your Capability Statement please provide the following information about the timeframe in which you can support the data collection contract:

1. How long, after the contract award, would you be able to implement your protocol/methodology on the first OEM? The FAA is hoping to have a contract award in mid-February 2024, but that is a non-binding timeline.
2. When would the capacity for a simultaneous implementation of your protocol/methodology be available?
3. What is the projected time for completing the data collection for a single OEM? What factors would impact that timeframe? How long would the resulting analysis and development of findings take for a single OEM? Will having multiple simultaneous data collections impact that timeframe?
4. How long would it take you to implement the required agreements with the Original Equipment Manufacturers to access and protect their information? Are there any factors or specific types of OEMs that would require additional time to implement?

The submitted Capability Statement is LIMITED TO 7 PAGES and must be presented in Microsoft word in size 12 Times New Roman text.

7. Delivery Submittals:

All submissions in response to this market survey must be received by 03:00 pm EST January 19, 2024. Send response via email to Joseph.S.Szwec@faa.gov

8. Other (if applicable)

• The FAA will not be conducting a pre-proposal conference and/or a site visit prior to submittals in response to this market survey announcement.
• Any Confidential or proprietary information submitted in response to this announcement must be marked accordingly by the vendor. Such information will not be disclosed outside of the acquisition team.

9. Attachments 1. Draft Statement of Work

Attachments/Links