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The Vertical Flight Society now has more than 25 hours of online videos related to electric VTOL aircraft and technology.
Available to the Public for Free
Subscribe to the VFS YouTube Channel at www.youtube.com/VTOLsociety for the latest news and educational videos on vertical flight, including:
Vertical Flight Society Executive Director Mike Hirschberg provided an overview of eVTOL promise and progress in a briefing, "The Electric VTOL Revolution," to the VFS San Francisco Bay Area Chapter on July 2, 2018. More than 100 people attended, including dozens of NASA Rotorcraft Aeromechanics interns from around the United States.
On Nov. 8, 2017, The Boeing Company acquired Aurora Flight Sciences, which bills itself as “an innovative technology company which strives to create smarter aircraft through the development of versatile and intuitive autonomous systems.” Or to put it another way, a company whose entire existence is thinking outside the box.
For those who knew to look for it as something potentially revolutionary — rather than some crazy idea for a far-away future — electric VTOL almost broke into the mainstream this year. On Monday, Feb. 26, the day before Heli-Expo began, AHS Executive Director Mike Hirschberg gave a press briefing, entitled, “The Future of Vertical Flight,” providing a perspective on the global vertical flight market and technological development, including the potential of eVTOL.
On March 12, Kitty Hawk revealed its latest surprise: Cora. After nearly eight years of secretive electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft development, the Mountain View, California-based company backed by Google co-founder Larry Page finally went public. With the hashtag #MeetCora, Kitty Hawk announced that it had been flying a two-seat derivative of the Zee Aero Z-P2 (see “Electric VTOL News,” Vertiflite March/April 2018) in California and in New Zealand. The company also announced that it had established Zephyr Airworks, the operator of Cora in New Zealand.
AHS International is pleased to announce that the Society is rebranding to better reflect our membership and our role in the world.
After years of discussion and months of debate, the Board of Directors of AHS International voted to change the identity of AHS to the “Vertical Flight Society,” the moniker that the Society had been using in various forms for at least a half century. While not a legal name change, the “Vertical Flight Society” will become the “trade name” for AHS.
Bratislava, Slovakia-based AeroMobil s.r.o. was founded in 2010 to develop vehicles that can convert from street-legal automobiles to aircraft, though the AeroMobil design has been in development since 1990. The company flew its 3.0 short takeoff and landing (STOL) design in 2013 and announced its 4.0 production model in April 2017, capable of STOL operations from 650 ft (200 m) grass strips; the company is currently taking pre-orders for the vehicle.
AHS International Executive Director Mike Hirschberg hosted a panel discussing the promise, progress and challenges of electric VTOL aircraft development. More than 50 companies are currently developing eVTOL aircraft (see the AHS website, www.eVTOL.news), with several in advanced stages of flight testing. Industry experts expect these new products to enter the market in the next 5-10 years, and expand the operational opportunities for rotorcraft operators, due to their extremely low noise and low operating costs.
A packed house at January’s AHS International Transformative Vertical Flight Technical Meeting and Fifth Annual Workshop learned about bold visions for urban air taxis and the challenges of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL). Four days of presentations hosted by the AHS San Francisco Bay Area Chapter covered aeromechanics, propulsion, acoustics, infrastructure and certification advances aimed largely at airborne mass transit. The new rotorcraft suggested for moving people over clogged streets include multicopters, tiltrotors, tilt wings and ducted fans, nearly all designed around Distributed Electric Propulsion (DEP). AHS International executive director and workshop program chair Mike Hirschberg observed, “Really, transformative flight is [largely] about DEP and the design freedom that it enables.”
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
