April 19, 2021 — a day for the record books: the successful first flight of an aircraft on another planet. Lifting off from the surface of Mars to a modest 10 ft (3 m), NASA’s diminutive Ingenuity helicopter made a humble start that holds huge significance for future flights.
Making lightweight, crashworthy aerostructures affordable is essential for advanced air mobility (AAM), given the huge number of aircraft needed to unclog roads.
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.
On March 30, Lilium GmbH announced that it had agreed to merge with Qell Acquisition Corp., and revealed the development of its 7-seat Lilium Jet.
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.
In Germany, there are two main providers of helicopter emergency medical service (HEMS): the DRF Luftrettung (“German Air Rescue” — originally Deutsche Rettungsflugwacht e.V.) and ADAC Luftrettung, run by the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club e.V. (“General German Automobile Association”).
