Uber held its third annual summit on June 11-12 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. According to the company, "The Uber Elevate Summit brought together 1200+ attendees for 2 days of technical sessions, hands-on demos, and evening networking events." This page is a web capture from https://www.uber.com/us/en/elevate/summit/2019/attending, June 2019.
Uber held its third annual Elevate Summit on June 11-12 at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. VFS was there in force, live-tweeting the event (https://twitter.com/electricVTOL) and posting photos real-time on Twitter and Facebook.
VFS has an album of 60 pictures from the event in the Vertical Flight Photo Gallery.
The Vertical Flight Society held its 75th Annual Forum & Technology Display, the world's leading international event on vertical flight technology, on May 13-16, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This special 75th anniversary event spanned four days and included a record 280+ technical papers, plus 75 presentations and discussions by leaders in industry, the military, government agencies and academia. Forum 75 was a spectacular success with a record 1,400 attendees celebrated 75 years of advancing vertical flight. Find out more about Forum 75 proceedings papers, photos and more!
On May 8, 2019, XTI Aircraft announced that they had successfully completed the first test flights of its 65% scale prototype of the TriFan 600 VTOL aircraft:
The TriFan 600 prototype completed multiple takeoffs, hover, and landings, which tested and validated the electric motors, battery power system, ducted fan propulsion, flight controls, other electrical systems and instrumentation. The aircraft was on a short tether during the tests due to its location at an airport in northern California where it was constructed. Future flights at a certified UAV test facility will be untethered in hover and will also test forward, wing-borne flight, as well as the transition phase between vertical and forward-flight modes.
On Monday, April 29, 2019, the Vertical Flight Society hosted a panel at the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) XPONENTIAL 2019 trade show, with some 200 attendees.
The $2M GoFly Prize competition has completed its second phase and has so far received more interest than ever imagined. The idea to fund safe and innovative designs for a personal flying machine was a longtime dream for Gwen Lighter and she worked for years to get it started, including getting help from the Vertical Flight Society and other experts (see “AHS Supports GoFly!,” Vertiflite, Nov/Dec 2017).
A VFS panel and other discussions at Heli-Expo provided an opportunity for the commercial helicopter operating community to ask some tough questions about eVTOL technology.
For the second year in a row, the Vertical Flight Society organized a panel discussion at Heli-Expo to brief the civil helicopter industry and operators on electric- and hybrid-electric-powered vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft opportunities and challenges.
Bell and its partners talk about its Nexus eVTOL and the team’s approach to creating a revolutionary new type of aircraft.
As its name suggests, the Bell Nexus hybrid-electric VTOL is all about making connections.
On April 4, the EHang Air Mobility Group, based in Guangzhou, China, and the Austrian FACC aviation company flew media representatives on demonstration flights in the two-seat EHang 216 eVTOL. The flights were conducted in the Generali Arena in Vienna, Austria. EHang is part of the Urban Air Mobility Project — established with FACC and 4GAMECHANGERS / ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 — which is intended to be open to others interested in supporting the initiation and operation of eVTOL air taxis in Austria by 2020.
Opener, the developer of the BlackFly electric Personal Aerial Vehicle (ePAV) for consumer travel, has appointed a president, Ben Diachun, the company announced on April 2. He will report to Marcus Leng, Opener founder and CEO. Diachun comes from Scaled Composites; Burt Rutan lauded Diachun, stating, “Ben Diachun’s spark of genius enhances any company he joins.... As an engineer, Ben played a key role in the creation of 14 revolutionary experimental aircraft, and as the President of Scaled Composites, he developed a talented team, explored new innovations and ensured our growth.”
