The UK government’s Future Flight Challenge announced in January that it had selected the company Urban Air Port, partnered with Hyundai Motor Group and the Coventry City Council, to develop the Air-One skyport hub to evaluate eVTOL aircraft operations.
In order to facilitate a UAM ecosystem around the Paris region, the RATP Group, Groupe ADP and Choose Paris Region launched an international call for interest on Oct. 1. Some 150 applications from 25 countries were received and 30 winners were selected, with the intent to begin conducting experiments in June 2021 in the test area at the Pontoise-Cormeilles-en-Vexin airfield, which was inaugurated on Sept. 30.
The Single European Sky (SES) Air Traffic Management (ATM) Research Joint Undertaking (SESAR-JU) announced on Jan. 21 that it had formed a consortium 17 companies and other organizations to design and test concepts of operations for various AAM (aka urban air mobility, UAM) applications within the framework of U-space — the European Commission’s Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) System that seeks safe and secure integration of drones and other autonomous aircraft into Europe’s airspace.
Bruchsal, Germany-based Volocopter GmbH announced on Jan. 15 that the FAA had “positively accepted” its application for concurrent type certificate validation on Dec. 22, setting the basis for Volocopter to bring its VoloCity electric air taxi services to the American market.
On Dec. 28, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released its long-anticipated final rules for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). The new rules will require remote identification of drones and allow operators of small drones to fly over people and at night under certain conditions.
Jaunt Air Mobility and its partners made several announcements before and since the beginning of 2021. On Dec. 16, the company announced that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with VerdeGo Aero to explore the development of a hybrid-electric version of its Jaunt slowed rotor/compound (SR/C) electric rotorcraft.
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) has unveiled three lift-plus-cruise eVTOL aircraft prototypes. The company’s hybrid-electric VTOL project was started in 2019 and the company’s Beijing Civil Aircraft Technology Research Center (BCATRC) has built two prototypes.
Bell has continued developments of its Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) tailsitting eVTOL cargo drone. On Dec. 9, Bell flew its APT 70 with 110 lb (50 kg) of payload over an 8-mile (12.9-km) route at Bell’s testing site near Fort Worth, Texas.
Designers of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft typically envision multi-propeller air taxis controlled by RPM or collective blade pitch. The Eagle Flight Research Center (EFRC) at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University built a hovering multi-rotor testbed to try rotor speed, collective pitch and helicopter-style cyclic pitch in normal and emergency situations.
A year after the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft industry saw its first start-up valued at more than $1B (see “The First Electric VTOL Unicorn: Joby Aviation,” Vertiflite, March/April 2020), a growing number of companies across the advanced air mobility (AAM) industry are looking to merge with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) that is already publicly traded to raise the funds necessary to bankroll future growth.
