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The Vertical Flight Society has launched its inaugural VFS Design-Build-Vertical Flight (DBVF) Student Competition. This 20 lb (9 kg) eVTOL competition seeks to encourage interest in unmanned aircraft technology, and small air vehicle design and fabrication. The Army Research Lab (ARL) is the host of the fly-off taking place April 16-17 between schools from around the world.
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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.”
Everyone knows what a car is. The dominant configuration is a self-propelled, wheeled ground vehicle that carries a driver and one or more passengers, often built in large quantities on efficient production lines and usually made compliant with the regional rules of the road. Affordable, safe transportation that is there when we need it, that starts every time, is easy to own and easy to operate. The reliable family car.
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Although the explosion of interest in electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft over the past few years caught many by surprise, the development has been underway for more than a decade.
Converting technical programs to virtual events has kept vertical flight information flowing and made it more convenient than ever for members to stay current.
After eight months as the chief research and development officer for Hyundai’s UAM division, J. Scott Drennan has left the Uber Elevate Partner to start a consulting business — Drennan Innovations — that will provide “executive-level engineering, innovation and leadership consulting services,” with focus areas to include vertical takeoff and landing systems for advanced air mobility (the more expansive term for of “UAM”). Hyundai made the announcement on Oct. 20.
Jaunt Air Mobility is an oddball in the sea of 350-plus electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concepts catalogued on the VFS World eVTOL Aircraft Directory (www.eVTOL.news/aircraft). It is one of the only electric gyrodyne aircraft being developed for the urban air mobility (UAM) market, and many of those who understand autorotative rotorcraft are impressed.
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
On Aug. 14, 2020, the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) released its FY 2022 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities policy memorandum. Like last year's memo, eVTOL is again highlighted as a research priority. This 10-page memorandum (M-20-29) emphasizes programs the Administration sees as priorities as agencies develop their fiscal year 2022 budget proposals.
The Vertical Flight Society (VFS) is hosting its fourth annual panel, “Progress Towards Autonomous Vertical Flight,” on Monday, August 10, 2020. The half-day webinar is sponsored by Near Earth Autonomy and is supported by the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI).
