News

Fantastic eVTOL Forecasts

• 02 Jan 2019 10:14 AM
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In November, Roland Berger, a strategy consulting firm headquartered in Munich, Germany, released a study dubbed, “Urban air mobility — The rise of a new mode of transportation.” In it, the company noted that “pilot projects are already scheduled to go live in cities like Dubai, Singapore, Los Angeles and Dallas in the early 2020s,” and predicted about 3,000 passenger drones would be in use by 2025, followed by exponential growth; Roland Berger forecast that, by 2050, “close to 100,000 passenger drones could be on the move worldwide and serve as air taxis, airport shuttles and intercity flight services.”

Bell Broadens its eVTOL Team

• 02 Jan 2019 10:11 AM
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Bell announced new membership in its eVTOL air taxi development team. In addition to various companies revealed over the past several months — including Garmin, Honeywell and Safran — the Ft. Worth, Texas, company announced that Thales, Electric Power Systems (EPS) and Moog would also join its team.

NEXA and VFS Initiate UAM Study

• 02 Jan 2019 09:52 AM
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In October, NEXA Advisors and the Vertical Flight Society announced the prospectus for a new study, "Urban Air Mobility (UAM) — Economics and Global Markets." This groundbreaking study will cover market and economic forecasts from 2020 to 2040 for 70 metropolitan areas, including technologies, policies, markets, infrastructure and economics. NEXA Advisors, a NEXA Capital company and the lead underwriting sponsor, has a well-known record of performing “multi-client” research for the aerospace sector.

RPI MOVE Videos/Lectures Posted

• 14 Oct 2018 05:00 PM
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The opening of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Center for Mobility with Vertical Lift (MOVE) was held on Oct. 2-3, 2018, at the university, located in Troy, New York: http://move.rpi.edu

Fueled by explosive growth in the emergent field of electric VTOL aircraft, as well as the U.S. DoD’s interest in high-speed VTOL aircraft, vertical lift technology is undergoing a major renaissance and is at one of the most exciting points in its development history.

CAFE EAS2018 Videos Now Available!

• 25 Sep 2018 04:31 PM
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The CAFE Foundation's 12th Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium (EAS) was held on the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh campus on July 21-22 prior to EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2018. The theme was "The Future of Flight: Electric Aviation Technologies and Opportunities."

eVTOL Briefing at ERF

• 19 Sep 2018 04:30 PM
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Vertical Flight Society Executive Director Mike Hirschberg is providing an overview of eVTOL promise and progress in a briefing, "The Electric VTOL Revolution," to the 44th European Rotorcraft Forum (ERF) at the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands on Sept. 19, 2018.

Opener BlackFly Debuts at Oshkosh

• 01 Sep 2018 01:56 PM
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On July 12, Opener shocked the world by announcing that its BlackFly was the first US- and Canadian-qualified fixed-wing ultralight eVTOL. The company showed stunning video and off-the-charts performance. Here’s the inside story.

On Oct. 5, 2011, Canadian engineer and entrepreneur Marcus Leng flew an eight-rotor tandem-wing electric aircraft from the front yard of his house and became convinced that electric vertical flight had a great future. This aircraft — initially dubbed the “SkyKar Rebel” — was apparently the world’s first fixed-wing electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) flight (see www.evtol.news/evtol-timeline).

The EAA AirVenture VTOL Adventure

• 30 Aug 2018 01:28 PM
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Vertiflite attended the world’s largest annual gathering of aviation enthusiasts in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, to report on the latest developments in vertical flight for the experimental and general aviation market.

The Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture fly-in and convention in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, was a showcase for conventional rotorcraft and electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, with no fewer than eight prototype eVTOL aircraft displayed by five innovative companies and more than 50 rotorcraft showcased by manufacturers, operators and collectors.

Electric VTOL is Taking Off. Beware the Hyper-Hype Cycle.

• 30 Aug 2018 11:50 AM
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One of the reasons why members of the nascent helicopter community decided in early 1943 to establish the American Helicopter Society was because they didn’t feel that they were being taken seriously by the aviation establishment.

Bell Files eVTOL Patent

• 27 Aug 2018 03:28 PM
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Bell filed for a patent entitled “Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) Aircraft” on Jan. 2, 2018, and it was published July 26, 2018. Aviation Week’s Graham Warwick noted (in "Does Patent Application Reveal Bell’s eVTOL Design?, The Weekly Of Business Aviation, Aug. 13, 2018) that it “may provide clues to Bell’s design for [its eVTOL] air taxi.”