Site Intelligence — Q1–Q5 Screening
The facility-level screening layer. A five-question framework that classifies a facility’s regulatory and operational standing, version-locked and hash-anchored so any assessment is permanently traceable to the exact methodology that produced it.
Methodology v1.1 (current).
1. What this is
Site Intelligence is the screening framework AirIndex applies at the facility level. It asks five questions of a facility’s public record — federal registration, airspace clearance, state enforcement posture, fire-code adoption, and an eVTOL-viability screen — and resolves each to an explicit categorical state. The framework is the published layer; the Obstruction Environment Score (OES) and the canonical cohort taxonomy are scoped components documented within it (Sections 5 and 6). OES is a component of Site Intelligence, never the umbrella.
The framework is a screening instrument: it identifies what is present in the record and flags what warrants further evaluation. It is not an engineering determination, a weather model, or a substitute for a site visit. Its value is that every classification is explicit, source-anchored, and reproducible against a published, versioned specification.
2. The Q1–Q5 framework
Each question carries a fixed set of categorical states. Adding a question, renaming a state, or rewriting a description changes the methodology hash (Section 3).
| Q | Topic | Definition | States |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | FAA registration | Active FAA NASR 5010 record. Pass = registered and current. | pass · flag · missing · unknown |
| Q2 | OEAAA airspace determination | Federal airspace clearance status. On_file = OE/AAA determination submitted and concurrent. This is the regulatory clearance prerequisite for eVTOL operations. | on_file · expired · missing · denied · unknown |
| Q3 | State enforcement posture | State-level posture toward enforcement of heliport / vertiport standards. Captures whether a site sits in a jurisdiction with active enforcement vs. permissive vs. silent. | active · permissive · silent · unknown |
| Q4 | NFPA 418 compliance | Compliance with NFPA 418 fire / construction code (the heliport-construction standard), where adopted. | compliant · partial · non_compliant · not_adopted · unknown |
| Q5 | eVTOL viability screen | Typological screen, NOT a per-site dimensional measurement. At_risk flags hospital / medical-center helipad site types (facility name + FAA NASR use-type match) — a class where the recorded TLOF (commonly ~40×40 ft) falls below the ≥50×50 ft eVTOL FATO minimum in the large majority of cases. The flag identifies the site for site-level dimensional assessment; it does not assert a measured gap at that specific facility. 'unknown' = not a screened site type (no determination made). A measured per-facility determination requires NASR pad dimensions or imagery/survey analysis, which this screen does not perform. | viable · at_risk · non_viable · unknown |
at_risk flags hospital / medical-center helipad site types — a class warranting eVTOL dimensional assessment — from facility name and FAA NASR use-type. It does not assert a measured FATO shortfall at any specific facility, and it does not synthesize a composite score. A measured per-facility determination requires pad dimensions or imagery/survey analysis the screen does not perform. This distinction is deliberate and is enforced in the specification text itself.3. Methodology version & hash
The specification is serialized deterministically and hashed (SHA-256). The hash fully fingerprints the framework: the same specification produces the same hash on every machine, and any change to the framework produces a different hash and a new version. An assessment cites the hash of the methodology active when it was sealed, so a record issued months ago remains legible against the exact framework that produced it — the discipline a rating methodology uses when it publishes a version.
| Version | v1.1 (current) |
| Methodology hash | d6f876afcc68b30bd4b7ef5bd59fd87aaf995e9a53cbae35140761d63a92d99c |
| Screening filter | q5EvtolViability = "at_risk" · q2AirspaceDetermination = "on_file" |
| Market scope | phoenix, miami, los_angeles, dallas |
| Data sources | FAA NASR 5010 · FAA OE/AAA · AirIndex Q1-Q5 audit framework · NFPA 418 (Standard for Heliports) |
Every assessment issued under this methodology is independently verifiable. Each cited facility resolves to its canonical AirIndex identifier and an audit record at /verify; the integrity mechanism is documented in Cryptographic Provenance.
4. Version history
| Version | Change | Hash |
|---|---|---|
| v1.0 | Initial Q1–Q5 specification. | f31be190b638e812be35ac86deba63118bf08fcc053c653859ce5bf00cc312c9 |
| v1.1 | Q5 description tightened — stated explicitly as a typological screen, not a measured per-site composite. Screening filter and market scope unchanged, so the cohort a given specification selects is identical to v1.0. Only the self-description and version moved. | d6f876afcc68b30bd4b7ef5bd59fd87aaf995e9a53cbae35140761d63a92d99c |
Assessments sealed under v1.0 remain traceable to the v1.0 hash and are not retroactively altered — the prior version is preserved, not overwritten. A change in methodology version is a visible, on-record event, never a silent edit.
5. Component — Obstruction Environment Score (OES)
OES is a scoped component within Site Intelligence: a screening indicator of the physical and airflow constraints surrounding a facility. It is a 0–100 score across four tiers (LOW 0–19, MODERATE 20–44, ELEVATED 45–69, CRITICAL 70–100; higher = more constrained), composed of four sub-scores: 8:1 approach-surface penetrations, FATO-zone intrusions, prevailing-wind-path interactions, and the worst surrounding height-to-distance ratio.
Inputs. OpenStreetMap building heights, FAA NASR pad data, and climatological wind. It is a Stage-2 heuristic: a screening read, not an engineering or CFD determination. Building-height coverage in the underlying open data is sparse; where a facility has no usable surrounding-structure data, OES is reported as unavailable rather than inferred. Absence of data is stated, never assumed in either direction.
6. Component — Canonical cohort taxonomy
A canonical cohort is jurisdiction × facilityType. Every facility in the registry belongs to exactly one canonical cohort, derived deterministically from authoritative FAA NASR fields — reproducible by any third party from the same source.
| jurisdiction | USPS two-letter state, from the NASR facility record. |
| facilityType | Authoritative-only, from NASR ownership/use codes: military if the ownership code is Air Force / Navy / Army; else public-use or private-use by use code; else unclassified when the source field is absent (never guessed). |
| identifier | Deterministic — aix:cohort:<state>-<facilityType> — computable by anyone from the taxonomy, not minted at random. The taxonomy is a versioned, hash-locked specification; a facility’s cohort changing as the source record changes is recorded as a succession, never a mutation. |
7. What this is, and what it is not
Site Intelligence is early-stage screening: it sits before detailed engineering evaluation and before a site visit, and it identifies where deeper evaluation is warranted. It is not an engineering assessment, not a weather model, and not a design tool. Q5 is a typological screen, not a measurement. OES is a heuristic screening indicator, not a CFD result. Canonical cohorts are authoritative and reproducible; screened attributes are labeled, lower-confidence, and never conflated with the canonical layer.
8. Citing this methodology
Cite the framework by version and hash — e.g. AirIndex Site Intelligence v1.1 (d6f876afcc68…) — so the reference resolves unambiguously even after the methodology advances. Facility identifiers and assessment records are verifiable at /verify. Related: the AIX-ID System (the identifier layer) and Market Readiness Scoring (the market-level layer).
AirIndex publishes its methodology so assessments can be checked, not taken on trust. This page renders the specification and hash directly from the framework AirIndex screens against — the published methodology and the operative one cannot diverge.