Category Filtering: 'vertiflite'
A Maryland startup has combined a 90-year-old aircraft design that was ahead of its time with the latest breakthroughs in composite materials, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and an innovative tilt-wing configuration to develop an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flying taxi that could navigate high-rise urban landscapes.
If German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer Lilium GmbH had a theme song, it might be the Fleetwood Mac classic, “Go Your Own Way.” More than 150 companies worldwide, most of them startups, are pursuing the tantalizing vision of a multibillion-dollar eVTOL market, but Lilium’s aircraft design and business model go in drastically different directions from most of the rest.
On June 18, 1914, Lawrence Sperry of the Sperry Corporation performed a spectacular demonstration of his new invention, the gyroscopic autopilot, before a crowd assembled on the banks of the Seine River in France. Not content to simply lift his hands off the controls, Sperry actually left his pilot seat and crawled onto the wing of his Curtiss C-2 biplane to display his confidence in the device, launching a new era of automatic flight control.
On Dec. 1, the vertical flight community learned that the Cora two-seat, lift-plus-cruise electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) program was moving to a joint venture established by The Boeing Company and Kitty Hawk Corporation called Wisk Aero.
This is quite the remarkable accomplishment for the Silicon Valley technology company, considering that most in the aerospace community didn’t know that this stealth eVTOL program existed less than two years ago.
European views on how soon and how best electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft might create new transportation markets differ — in some cases strongly — with the vision being pushed by urban air mobility (UAM) promoters, such as Uber. At its Uber Elevate Summit in Washington in June, the ride-hailing company promised it was on track to launch air taxi demonstration flights with its partners in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2020 and to begin actual commercial service in 2023.
Summer 2019 brought 70 interns — from Puerto Rico, 44 continental US states, Sweden, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago — into the NASA Ames Aeromechanics Branch. Some were high school students learning engineering for the first time, while most were mechanical and aerospace engineering students, though two physics majors and a math major jumped into the mix to provide balance.
On Nov. 13, VFS was a signatory of a letter sent to the Trump Administration in support of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) research and development. The letter was written in response to the Aug. 30, 2019, White House Policy Memorandum, “Fiscal Year 2021 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities,” which included eVTOL.
The Vertical Flight Society held its quadrennial Propulsion and Power Technical Meeting at the Hampton Roads Convention Center in Hampton, Virginia, on Oct. 29-30, 2019. The theme of the two-day conference was “Powering the Future of Vertical Flight,” which highlighted research and development efforts — both current and planned — related to manned and unmanned rotorcraft and other vertical flight vehicles.
In August, NEXA Advisors and VFS announced the completion of a comprehensive year-long study, “Urban Air Mobility—Economics and Global Markets.” The groundbreaking NEXA report, undertaken with support from VFS, contains forecasts for 74 metropolitan areas over the period of 2020–2040. The online databases include thousands of geocoded data features and characteristics of each city, as well as the study’s findings on their potential market for urban air mobility (UAM). Included on these web pages are custom ArcGIS maps of each city.
AeroMobil, the Bratislava, Slovakia-based company with an actual flying car, announced on Sept. 3 that it has expanded its business to offer specialist technical consulting services for VTOL and UAM aircraft. Aeromobil’s Technical Consulting Services division will provide services in three areas: technical advisory, engineering consulting and concept development on offer for existing organizations, and new entrants aiming to solve engineering challenges and create safe, certifiable VTOL aircraft.
