On Oct 27, 2016, Uber released its landmark Uber Elevate White Paper: Fast-Forwarding to a Future of On-Demand Urban Air Transportation." AHS — The Vertical Flight Society consulted on the white paper and is cited on page 9 under "Contributors and Reviewers."
During the AHS-sponsored reception, Nikhil Goel, a product manager of special projects at Uber Technologies, commented on Uber's plans for moving urban transportation to the skies with electric VTOL. A transcription follows:
At Uber, we are super obsessed with cities, improving cities, unlocking their immense value through urban mobility.And to us urban mobility means a couple of things. One, it means cutting congestion. It means eliminating parking, which can take up to a third of urban real estate, and dramatically reducing pollution.
In an onstage interview with me today at the Nantucket Conference, Uber products head Jeff Holden said the fast-growing ride sharing company was seriously looking at a new form of transportation to offer its customers: Short-haul flying in cities.
The German aerospace industry has enjoyed global success and recognition in design and innovation over the decades.
One prime example is the Airbus Helicopters-legacy Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) Bo 105 light, twin-engine helicopter. This had one of the world’s first rigid rotor designs, and formed the backbone of the parapublic marketplace globally for more than forty years — reaching a landmark eight million flight hours in 2014.
As described in the last issue of Vertiflite (“Lightning Strikes Aurora”), after four-and-a-half years of development, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) awarded Aurora Flight Sciences an $89.4M contract to develop, build and flight test its VTOL X-Plane. Aurora’s LightningStrike uses a distributed hybrid-electric propulsion system: a Rolls-Royce AE 1107C turboshaft (the same T406 engine as used in the V-22 Osprey) drives three Honeywell 1 MW (1,340 hp) generators through a gearbox (more than 10 kA — enough to power a home subdivision); the generators in turn power 24 electric motors, driving constant speed, variable pitch fans (18 on the wing and six on the canards). Both the wing and canard tilt for vertical takeoff and landing.
The US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced on March 3 [2016] that it had selected Aurora Flight Sciences to continue on in the DARPA VTOL X-Plane program. The company was awarded an $89.4M contract for Phases 2 (development) and 3 (flight test) for its LightningStrike hybrid-electric concept.
The past two months have been a turning point in electric-powered transportation.
On March 31, Tesla Motors unveiled the all-electric Tesla Model 3 five-seat compact sedan, starting at a base price of $35,000. Tesla, which shipped 50,000 cars worldwide in 2015, expects to sell more than 80,000 in 2016, but the first Model 3 cars aren’t expected to arrive until the end of 2017.
Karlsruhe, Germany-based e-volo GmbH conducted the first flight of its VC200 Volocopter on March 30 at nearby Bruchsal Airfield. After receiving its “Permit to Fly” as an ultralight aircraft in February, e-volo called its VC200 “the world’s first certified Multicopter.”
What if you could cut your daily commute time from 35 minutes to 12 minutes? How much of a bigger home would you buy if you could commute 100 miles to work and still get there in less than 35 minutes? What if this type of capability was cost-competitive to driving, taking the train or bus?
These questions have compelled a group of scientists, engineers and visionaries in industry, government and academia to meet once a year to tackle the technical, regulatory and perception challenges of democratized vertical flight.
Hayward, California is the San Francisco Bay area headquarters of Elytron Aircraft LLC, owned by Oliver Garrow and Gregory Bruell, who both have backgrounds in computer software design and engineering. Previously, Garrow Aircraft invented the innovative and unique Verticopter concept developing the design over a period of 10 years until the construction of the prototype. Garrow Aircraft created Elytron in 2013 for research into combining the advantages of fixed and rotary wing flight.
