The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and Civil Aviation Authority Singapore (CAAS) announced on Dec. 4 that they had updated their bilateral agreement to facilitate CAAS validation of EASA aircraft type certifications. This amendment allows the two regulators to “collaborate on facilitating aviation innovations, such as electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft.
Bruchsal, Germany-based Volocopter GmbH has continued pushing forward with its two-seat, 18-propeller multicopter eVTOL since the “roll-out” of its first production model, the VC 2-1 VoloCity on Sept. 30. On Oct. 28, the company announced a cooperative effort with Lufthansa Industry Solutions to build Volocopter’s proprietary intelligent and integrated “Urban Air Mobility [UAM] Software Platform,” called VoloIQ (shown), which will run on Microsoft Azure.
On Oct. 23, Dallas, Texas-based Jaunt Air Mobility announced that it was launching Access Skyways, a group of partner companies providing expertise to support the integration of AAM. Jaunt announced memorandums of understanding with PS&S Integrated Services, an architectural and engineering firm with experience in vertiport design, and PRICE Systems, which specializes in predictive cost modeling and has the capability to calculate passenger demand for air taxi services.
The US Air Force’s AFWERX innovation organization announced on Oct. 26 that it intended to select more than 250 proposals as part of its “X20D” Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) open topic solicitation, a record in the program’s nearly three-decade history. This X20D solicitation was focused on the Agility Prime program, the AFWERX initiative to operationalize AAM/eVTOL for government missions in a way that accelerates the emerging commercial market.
NASA announced on Nov. 16 that Wisk and Alaka’i Technologies signed information exchange agreements with NASA this year, joining 17 companies who were announced in March (see “NASA’s National Campaign,” Vertiflite, May/June 2020). The two new vehicle partners are now preparing for the first National Campaign (NC-1) beginning in 2022, with the intent to assess operational safety scenarios focused on their respective automation and vehicle designs.
NASA and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) have been hosting a series of workshops to provide information on test and evaluation requirements, vehicle safety system development, and certification challenges for eVTOL aircraft.
Recognizing the need for fast, economical, point-to-point cargo and logistics transportation, VerdeGo Aero in Daytona Beach, FL and XTI Aircraft Company in Denver, CO have partnered together on the TriFan 200 program. XTI Aircraft, a leader in next-generation VTOL aircraft, is developing the TriFan 200, a configuration similar to its larger TriFan 600 VTOL passenger aircraft already under development.
The city of Orlando, Florida, along with the Tavistock Development Company and Lilium, announced on Nov. 11, 2020, that Lake Nona — adjacent to Orlando International Airport (MCO) — would be the site of what it called the first eVTOL vertiport in the world.
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The GoFly Prize was unclaimed in the Final Fly Off in February. Here is the story of the 21 teams who attended and their status during the pandemic. This is a follow-on to the article “GoFly Inspires Innovation.”
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DragonAir Aviation’s viral YouTube videos have turned millions of viewers on to the idea of personal VTOL flight.
