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Much has been written about the plans and development progress for Ingenuity; see "Red Planet Rotorcraft," Vertiflite, July/August 2018 and "NASA Mars Helicopter Team Striving for a 'Kitty Hawk' Moment," Vertiflite, May/June 2020.
Since 2014, the Vertical Flight Society has been leading efforts to promote the advancement of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and their operations for a variety of advanced air mobility (AAM) missions, including for the subset of urban air mobility (UAM).
After a full year of precautionary measures related COVID-19, VFS continues to provide webinars on relevant vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and electric VTOL (eVTOL) developments to keep members learning and actively engaged.
Today, the Toronto-based aerospace consultant, photojournalist and VFS Board member is a subject matter expert on a wide range of vertical, short and conventional takeoff and landing (VTOL, STOL and CTOL) aircraft operations.
As we turned the calendar over to 2021, VFS continued to provide webinars on relevant vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and electric VTOL (eVTOL) developments to keep members learning and engaged. Links to past and future webinars are available at www.vtol.org/webinars.
The 9th Biennial Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting and 8th Annual Electric VTOL Symposium was held Jan. 26–28, sponsored by the VFS Arizona Chapter.
The explosive growth in eVTOL has led to the formation of two collaborative councils to advance the understanding. Both councils report to the VFS provisional Electric VTOL Technical Committee, led by Dr. Anubhav Datta. Contact Jim Sherman at jsherman[at]vtol.org for more information or to join.
The US Air Force officially launched its Agility Prime initiative when it issued a request for information (RFI) on Dec. 17, 2019 — the 116th anniversary of the Wright Flyer making the first heavier-than-air powered flight. In the first intake of companies in the Air Force’s “Air Race to Certification,” some 20 eVTOL companies applied to participate.
Among the many luminaries in rotorcraft history, the name Frank Piasecki stands out alongside that of Igor Sikorsky. While Sikorsky flew America’s first successful helicopter in 1939, young Piasecki was close on his heels. In 1943, he became the second designer to fly a successful helicopter in the US (see sidebar).
For the past two years, I have included a discussion about the “Five Key Challenges” of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft in my public briefings. I initially referred to them (tongue in cheek) as “five simultaneous miracles” necessary to have urban air mobility (UAM) air taxi in service by the Uber Elevate goal of 2023.
