The Vertical Flight Society has been busy providing regular webinars and symposiums to help keep our members in the know and to keep advancing vertical flight. Links to past and future webinars are available at www.vtol.org/webinars
Galvanized by the promise of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, a small startup in Switzerland has set out to lead the way to a new age of self-flying aircraft by doing something no one yet knows how to do and regulators don’t know how to certify as safe. Daedalean AG is developing autonomous flight controls that rely on artificial intelligence (AI).
The Vertical Flight Society has been working to advance electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft since 2013, providing technical, professional and business resources to this burgeoning sector. As a leading advocate of the “Electric VTOL Revolution,” VFS has been holding its Electric VTOL Symposiums since 2014, started its Electric VTOL Newsletter in 2016, and launched its Electric VTOL website in 2017.
Thacker Adds Bell Commercial Remit
Michael Thacker, who joined Bell in February 2017 as the executive vice president of Technology and Innovation, has taken over additional responsibilities after the retirement of Susan Griffin, EVP for Commercial Business. As of June 2020, Thacker’s new title is EVP of Innovation and Commercial Business.
With his team of engineers and product developers in Santa Ana, California, Overair CEO Ben Tigner aims to apply Abe Karem’s optimum speed VTOL propulsion technology to urban air mobility (UAM). “Overair is a spinoff of Karem Aircraft, although its business goals are totally different,” he explained.
Whether batteries alone or hybrid engine-generator systems power electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft depends on timescale and mission. Electric aviation purists envision battery-powered air taxis and cargo drones crisscrossing cities silently and without combustion exhaust. Hydrocarbon fuels nevertheless store energy far better than batteries, and careful engineering may make more capable hybrid-electric aircraft clean, quiet and cheap to operate. Combustion engines and generators recharging batteries in flight — or driving electric motors directly without batteries — may also save on urban infrastructure.
Lilium — the secretive Munich-area startup whose performance promises for its Lilium Jet electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi have drawn interest from German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who has a PhD in quantum chemistry) and public disbelief from German academics and others — seems to have proven the old saying that, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
On July 30, Urban-Air Port, Ltd., and Hyundai Air Mobility (a Hyundai Motor Group division) announced a partnership to explore new, purpose-built, multifunctional and scalable infrastructure to enable UAM. Hyundai plans to invest $1.5B in UAM over the next five years to create an air vehicle and the supporting mobility ecosystem for UAM operations.
On July 27, Visp, Switzerland-based Dufour Aerospace announced that it had completed the first phase of flight testing of its subscale eVTOL technology demonstrator, the aEro 2. “Building on our experience in manned electric flight with our aerobatic plane aEro 1, we are proud to announce that we have completed the first phase of flight testing of our VTOL technology demonstrator aircraft.
Bell announced on July 17 that it had completed testing its Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) in beyond-visual-line-ofsight (BVLOS) flights. “At the beginning of the year, Bell’s APT proved that it can handle this type of flight through its first BVLOS flight carrying 60 lbs [27 kg] of payload at a testing site in Oklahoma.
