Horyzn Isar Falke (concept design)

(Image credit: Horyzn)

Isar Falke (concept design)
Horyzn
Technical University of Munich
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
www.horyzn.org

Horyzn was founded in 2019 at the Technical University of Munich in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. Horyzn is a student initiative team that has the goal of designing and building passenger rescue electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) prototype aircraft for tomorrow's nascent advanced air mobility (AAM) industry. These aircraft are being designed to quickly respond to natural and human-made disasters, extreme weather catastrophes, medical emergencies, wild fires and earthquakes. Horyzn participated in the GoAERO competition and are Stage 1 and Stage 2 winners.

The Horyzn GoAERO Team
The Horyzn GoAERO team leads are Agustina Ulloa Romero and Pranit Sonigra. The other team members include Jonas Neu, Dragos-Paul Retea, Cornelius Czuprin, Sankar Suresh, Jarom Schlien, Adrián Reigosa Rico, Dain Jee, Clarisse Troung, Surya Palaniappan Tiruppattur, Joel Eldo, Nikita Shirokov, Meriam Boussaadia, Yasmine Ben Salah, Khokon Chandra Sazzal, Aleksandra Dudzińska, Mohamed Abdelfadel, Mohammed Hafil Ali, Diana Grajales, Marta Pietraszko, Lara Lindner, Anna Tobies, Orkida Jahja, Hazem Alhammami, Arthur Debelle, Lucas Lindner, Mohammed Almasri, Issam Ayache, Vinzent Götze, Benjamin Hor, Lorena Oyola, Fiona Hoxha, Jakob Anton, Ramana Muruganantham, Anna Kowalewska, Katharina Behling, Abdullahi Hassan, Aqib Habib, Devin Bell, Lennard Cless, Paul Ruopp, Ahmet Melikşah Şahin, Lina Dridi, Omaima Zaier, Lukas Reisenbauer, Tharani Sankar, Lucas Feijó, Aniruddha Mallick, Andrii Chumak, Radhul Raveendran, Jerzy Dalek, Tanvi Deshmukh, Vlad Yelin, Keshav Verma, Andrii Karamian, Vicente Serna Adame, Ankit Kasi, Alexandru Raicu and Maciej Guzik.

Horyzn Prototypes Made
There are at least three different subscale eVTOL prototype drones the team has designed, built and have successfully flown.

• One of the prototypes is called the Kolibri and is a subscale lift+cruise eVTOL that has one tractor propeller, four VTOL-only propellers, one high main wing, one conventional tail and has fixed quadricycle long strut landing gear.
• Another unnamed subscale lift+cruise eVTOL prototype drone that was built and flown has two tractor propellers, eight stacked VTOL-only propellers, two booms holding the VTOL propellers, one high main wing, one boom tail and has fixed quadricycle skid-pad landing gear.
• The team also designed, built and flown an Isar Falke subscale eVTOL multicopter with eight propellers, a rectangular fuselage and has helicopter-type fixed skid landing gear.

Isar Falke autonomous passenger rescue eVTOL multicopter (concept design)
The Isar Falke is an autonomous passenger rescue eVTOL multicopter aircraft. The team has stated their eVTOL prototype aircraft have been designed to bridge the gap between accessibility and response time in emergency scenarios where traditional transportation and infrastructure fails. The goal is to reduce rescue time from hours to minutes and still have agile, safe and sustainable air rescue missions.

For example, the team's multicopter aircraft have been design to be deployed rapidly and are capable of carrying a paramedic, life-saving equipment, medicine to an emergency location and then fly the patient back to an ambulance or hospital. The team proposes that eVTOL aircraft are the new class of aircraft to meet these goals without roads or runways.

The multicopter has eight propellers, eight electric motors and is powered by battery packs. There is a rectangular fuselage that is high enough for one paramedic or one patient to lie down inside the multicopter during flight. The fuselage is made from carbon fiber composite to give the aircraft a high strength to low weight ratio. The multicopter will have fixed skid landing gear.

Subscale Prototype
The team has designed, built and successfully flown a subscale rescue eVTOL multicopter. With the knowledge the team has gained from the subscale prototype, the next goal is for the team to make a full-scale rescue eVTOL multicopter

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: Autonomous passenger rescue eVTOL multicopter (concept design)
• Piloting: Autonomous
• Capacity: 1 paramedic or 1 patient
• Cruise speed: ~100 km/h (~62 mph)
• Maximum payload weight: ~113-136 kg (~250-300 lb)
• Propellers: 8 propellers
• Electric motors: 8 electric motors
• Power source: Battery packs
• Fuselage: Carbon fiber composite
• Landing gear: 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. The aircraft has no moving surfaces or tilting parts when transitioning from vertical to forward flight and the reverse which increases safety by reducing complexity.

Resources:

• Horyzn website
• Horyzn LinkedIn
• Article: GoAERO Launches $2M+ VTOL Challenge, Electric VTOL News, Feb. 12, 2024
• Article: Stage 1 Winners, GoAero, Feb. 2025
• Article: GoAERO Announces Eleven Stage 1 Winners, Aero News Network, Feb. 16, 2025
• Article: GoAERO Global Emergency Response Flyer Competition Announces $500,000 of Awards to Innovators Worldwide with Support from Boeing, NASA, RTX, and Honeywell, GoAERO, Feb. 18, 2025
• Article: GoAERO Awards $500,000 to Stage 1 Teams, Vertiflite Magazine, Mar/Apr 2025
• Article: Meet the Teams: HORYZN, GoAERO, May 6, 2025
• Article: GoAERO Competition Promotes Creation of Automatic Lifesavers, Flying Magazine, Nov. 17, 2025
• Article: Stage 2 Winners, GoAERO, Dec. 2025
• Article: Horyzn Stage 2 Winning Team, GoAERO, Dec. 2025
• Article: Building the Future: GoAERO Announces Stage 2 Prototype Winners, GoAERO, Dec. 3, 2025
• Article: GoAERO Global Emergency Response Flyer Competition Announces 8 Stage 2 Prototype Winning Teams, GoAERO, Dec. 3, 2025
• Article: GoAERO Announces Stage 2 Prototype Winning Teams, Inspiring Creation of Emergency Response Flyers, eVTOL Insights, Dec. 4, 2025
• Article: First responders: Meet the self-flying aircraft built to take rescue aviation beyond helicopters, Aerospace Global News, Dec. 15, 2025
• Article: Horyzn successful in GoAERO mission, Technical University of Munich, Dec. 29, 2025
• Article: Development of an autonomous capable rescue aircraft, Drones Magazine, Jan. 2, 2026