AHS International's 5th Annual Transformative Vertical Flight Workshop, held in Jan. 2018 in San Francisco, California, featured the latest advances and possibilities in urban air mobility. Videos and presentations for the workshop are now available for download: www.vtol.org/TVF-2018
Vahana, the all-electric VTOL aircraft from A³ by Airbus, made its first full-scale flight on Jan. 31, 2018, at the Pendleton UAS Range in Pendleton, Oregon. The first untethered flight of the unmanned, fully self-piloted electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) demonstrator was a 53-second hover at 16 ft (5 m). A³ completed a second flight of the first demonstrator, dubbed “Alpha One,” the following day with representatives from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Joby Aviation, Inc., which went silent in late 2016 shortly after telling Vertiflite that it would fly in early 2017 (“The Demand for On-Demand Mobility, Vertiflite, Jan./Feb. 2017), revealed on Feb. 1, 2018 that it is well advanced in its flight testing of its four-seat S4. Although the company has still not revealed any images of the S4 since the AHS-led 2nd Transformative Vertical Flight Workshop in August 2015 (shown), the company officially announced on Feb. 1 that it has been flying the eVTOL aircraft and that it is “now developing a commercial version of that design and preparing that vehicle for certification.”
Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) -capable aircraft other than helicopters are not yet part of business and commercial aviation fleets. But that could change someday. Although there is much work going on right now on fully-electric VTOL aircraft for the Uber Elevate mission and other intra-city applications (see “The eVTOL Is in the Details,” pg. 42), larger aircraft and longer distances will require hybrid-electric propulsion solutions in the foreseeable future.
The Consumer Technology Association’s CES 2018 (formerly known as the Consumer Electronics Show) took place Jan. 9–12, 2018, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Key themes at the largest technology exhibition in the world included the promise of 5G, smart cities, smart homes, vehicle technology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality and technologies for consumers’ increasingly connected lives.
Seventy-five years ago, the burgeoning helicopter industry came together to establish the American Helicopter Society, which was legally recognized on June 25, 1943. By that time, development teams at Bell and Piasecki had solved many of the basic problems of helicopter flight, joining Sikorsky to become the first successful American helicopter developers; Hiller made their first flight a year later.
In mid-December, Airbus Helicopters began testing the “iron bird” for its four-passenger CityAirbus quad-duct eVTOL in Taufkirchen, Germany. The test bench operates the entire electric propulsion system, developed by Airbus’ E-Aircraft Systems unit, from flight controls to the dynamic loads of the propellers, verifying the electrical, mechanical and thermal dynamics.
Single- and four-seat Autonomous Aerial Vehicle (AAV) designs are being developed by VIMANA Global, Inc. The AAVs have fore and aft tilting wings, each with four electric propellers powered by electric or hybrid-electric motors. VIMANA is an international company with headquarters in Redwood City, California, and offices in the United Arab Emirates, India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Russia.
Airspace Experience Technologies, LLC (AirSpaceX), a subsidiary of Detroit Aircraft Corp., unveiled a sub-scale model of the latest version of its autonomous, electric VTOL aircraft, "MOBi-ONE," at the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS) in Detroit on Jan. 15.
In a CNN episode airing on Dec. 24, Fareed Zakaria interviewed Sebastian Thrun, CEO of Kitty Hawk/Zee Aero. Thrun unveiled the first public flight footage of the original eVTOL concept built and flown by Zee Aero in 2013.
