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Texas A&M University, Harmony Aeronautics, Quest (concept design)

Harmony Aeronautics Quest passenger eVTOL concept design aircraft

(Image credit: Harmony Aeronautics )

Quest (concept design)
Harmony Aeronautics
Texas A&M University
College Station, Texas, USA
www.harmonyaeronautics.com
www.tamu.edu

Founded in 1876, Texas A&M University (Agricultural Mechanical College of Texas) is the first public higher education institution in Texas and is distinguished by offering more than 130 courses of studies, through 18 colleges and houses 21 research institutes. The main campus spans over 5,500 acres (22 km2). In 2024, the total student population has over 79,000 undergraduates, postgraduates and doctoral students, and has over 11,000 academic staff.

The team won the GoAERO Stage 1 and Stage 2 award winners in 2025 and was one of 14 NASA University Innovation Award winners. The team's efforts will also help the nascent advance air mobility (AAM) industry to gain traction. 

In June 2018, Harmony Aeronautics was formed by Prof. Moble Benedict, eight of his graduate students, plus Dr. Eric Greenwood and Dr. Vinod Lakshminarayan, in a collaborative effort to design an aircraft for entry into the GoFly competition. It is a Texas-based engineering service start-up with a team of engineers and scientists who are passionate about developing advanced aircraft concepts and rotor and propeller technology. The team brings years of experience in engineering research, analysis, simulation, and rotorcraft and aircraft prototype development and flight-testing.

Quest passenger eVTOL vectored thrust aircraft (concept design)
The Quest is a one passenger eVTOL vectored thrust aircraft. There are videos of a very small 12 lb (5.33 kg) subscale prototype flying but it is unknown if the university team will make the concept design with a working cockpit into a full-scale prototype.

Few specifications have been published online about this concept design aircraft. However, we do know the aircraft is planned to hold one pilot and there might be some space for a small amount of luggage. The aircraft will have four propellers, four electric motors and will be powered by batteries. The aircraft will have biplane wings (two main wings stacked one on top of the other) and is a tail-sitter aircraft using fixed skid landing gear to land the aircraft.

It is important to remember that all concept design aircraft specifications are estimated and can or will change as prototypes and production models are made, tested and flown with real world avionics, components and payloads.

About the GoAERO Prize Competition
The GoAERO Prize, sponsored by Boeing, is a three year competition (2024-2027) offering over $2 million USD in prizes that challenges engineers worldwide to create portable, versatile and autonomy-enabled Emergency Response Aircraft that address not only everyday medical emergencies but also to be used in natural disasters, humanitarian emergencies and climate crises worldwide. Each team designs and builds autonomous Emergency Response aircraft capable of delivering a first responder, medical equipment and supplies and ultimately evacuating victims in need to a rescue ambulance or hospital.

More than 150 teams from around the globe are competing for the GoAero prizes. The GoFly and GoAERO prizes were developed by Boeing and other organizations to help the nascent advanced air mobility (AAM) industry move forward.

Specifications:

  • Aircraft type: Passenger eVTOL concept design aircraft
  • Piloting: 1 pilot
  • Cruise speed: Unknown
  • Propellers: 4 propellers
  • Electric motors: 4 electric motors
  • Power source: Batteries
  • Fuselage: Carbon fiber composite
  • Window: Canopy over cockpit
  • Wings: Wings: Biplane wings (two main wings stacked one above the other)
  • Landing gear: Tail-sitter with fixed skid landing gear
  • Safety features: Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP) uses multiple propellers or electric ducted fans, each powered by electric motors, to increase safety through redundancy. If one or more components fail, the remaining ones can still ensure a safe landing. There are also redundancies of critical components in the sub-systems of the aircraft providing safety through redundancy. Having multiple redundant systems on any aircraft decreases having any single point of failure.

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