
GoFly Extends Competition
- 30 Oct 2022 07:49 AM
- 0
GoFly announced in early September that it is extending the deadline for its competition for a personal VTOL until September 2023.
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GoFly announced in early September that it is extending the deadline for its competition for a personal VTOL until September 2023.
The article, “GoFly Teams Prepare to Fly Again,” in the Nov/Dec 2020 issue of Vertiflite, highlighted the 21 teams that came to the GoFly Final Fly Off on Feb. 29 and their status during the COVID-19 pandemic. As expected, GoFly announced its approach to continue the competition on Nov. 12: “Given the global pandemic, GoFly has adjusted its format to reflect this new normal. While the Grand Prize remains $1,000,000, we will now provide for an individual team demonstration rather than a large event gathering.
The GoFly Prize was unclaimed in the Final Fly Off in February. Here is the story of the 21 teams who attended and their status during the pandemic. This is a follow-on to the article “GoFly Inspires Innovation.”
DragonAir Aviation’s viral YouTube videos have turned millions of viewers on to the idea of personal VTOL flight.
Twenty-one teams from 10 countries were invited to participate in the GoFly Prize Final Fly Off competition on Feb. 28–29, many to showcase their “personal flyers” and several to compete for a $1M Grand Prize. The event was held at Moffett Federal Airfield at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, in the heart of the Silicon Valley.
The $2M GoFly Prize competition has completed its second phase and has so far received more interest than ever imagined. The idea to fund safe and innovative designs for a personal flying machine was a longtime dream for Gwen Lighter and she worked for years to get it started, including getting help from the Vertical Flight Society and other experts (see “AHS Supports GoFly!,” Vertiflite, Nov/Dec 2017).
GoFly announced on Feb. 6 that 40 teams were officially participating in Phase II (the building phase) of its GoFly Prize competition. On March 26, GoFly will announce the Phase II winners and award $50,000 USD to up to four winning teams.
The goal of the GoFly Prize is to foster the development of safe, quiet, ultra-compact, near-VTOL personal flying devices capable of flying twenty miles while carrying a single person. Here’s the story so far, nine months into the two-year competition. On June 14, the GoFly Prize announced the 10 award recipients after its Phase I competition.