With his team of engineers and product developers in Santa Ana, California, Overair CEO Ben Tigner aims to apply Abe Karem’s optimum speed VTOL propulsion technology to urban air mobility (UAM). “Overair is a spinoff of Karem Aircraft, although its business goals are totally different,” he explained.
Whether batteries alone or hybrid engine-generator systems power electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft depends on timescale and mission. Electric aviation purists envision battery-powered air taxis and cargo drones crisscrossing cities silently and without combustion exhaust. Hydrocarbon fuels nevertheless store energy far better than batteries, and careful engineering may make more capable hybrid-electric aircraft clean, quiet and cheap to operate. Combustion engines and generators recharging batteries in flight — or driving electric motors directly without batteries — may also save on urban infrastructure.
Lilium — the secretive Munich-area startup whose performance promises for its Lilium Jet electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) air taxi have drawn interest from German Chancellor Angela Merkel (who has a PhD in quantum chemistry) and public disbelief from German academics and others — seems to have proven the old saying that, “There’s no such thing as bad publicity.”
On July 30, Urban-Air Port, Ltd., and Hyundai Air Mobility (a Hyundai Motor Group division) announced a partnership to explore new, purpose-built, multifunctional and scalable infrastructure to enable UAM. Hyundai plans to invest $1.5B in UAM over the next five years to create an air vehicle and the supporting mobility ecosystem for UAM operations.
Bell announced on July 17 that it had completed testing its Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) in beyond-visual-line-ofsight (BVLOS) flights. “At the beginning of the year, Bell’s APT proved that it can handle this type of flight through its first BVLOS flight carrying 60 lbs [27 kg] of payload at a testing site in Oklahoma.
On July 27, Visp, Switzerland-based Dufour Aerospace announced that it had completed the first phase of flight testing of its subscale eVTOL technology demonstrator, the aEro 2. “Building on our experience in manned electric flight with our aerobatic plane aEro 1, we are proud to announce that we have completed the first phase of flight testing of our VTOL technology demonstrator aircraft.
In mid-December 2019, Terrafugia, a subsidiary of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group (ZGH) — a global mobility technology group headquartered in the city of Hangzhou in southeast China’s Zhejiang Province — successfully conducted its first test flight of the TF-2A sub-scale demonstrator. The fullscale TF-2A eVTOL aircraft was unveiled on June 22.
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The Santa Cruz Sentinel captured photos of the Joby Aviation five-seat prototype being airlifted from the company’s facility at Bonny Doon, California (outside of Santa Cruz) on July 7.
Massachusetts-based Alakai revealed to NewAtlas.com on July 9 that it was developing a second-generation liquid hydrogen-powered Skai eVTOL prototype. Originally unveiled in May 2019 (see “Flying in the Skai with Hydrogen, Vertiflite, July/August 2019), the first-generation prototype made tethered tests last year.
European consultancy Roland Berger presented the conclusions of a UAM study at the virtual Farnborough International Airshow Connect event on July 23. In the webinar, entitled “Global Urban Air Summit: Future of UAM,” the company stated that it expected some 7,000 eVTOL aircraft will be carrying passengers in UAM services by 2030, 47,000 by 2040 and 161,000 by 2050 (all analysis was marked as “Pre-COIVD-19”).
