Austin, Texas-based LIFT Aircraft revealed itself on Dec. 11, 2018. The LIFT Hexa is an all-electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) single-passenger wingless multicopter aimed primarily at tourism and short distance travel. It completed its first manned test flight on Nov. 1, 2018.
The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), the world’s largest assembly of the latest and greatest consumer technology from around the world — from phones and TVs, to drones, cars and, yes, even electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and a yacht — kicked off in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Jan. 8–11, 2019.
The sell-out 8th Biennial Autonomous VTOL Technical Meeting & 6th Annual Electric VTOL Symposium was a phenomenal success, with some 375 attendees. A series of articles in this issue of Vertiflite highlight the news and announcements from this event.
On Feb. 7, Eric Fanning, the President and CEO of Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) testified in a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing entitled, “The Cost of Doing Nothing: Why Investing in our Nation’s Infrastructure Cannot Wait.” In his remarks, Fanning spoke extensively of the potential of UAM.
What will urban air mobility (UAM) look like in the near future? How will electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft share airspace with helicopters, traditional airplanes, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and other unknown proposed aircraft such as personal air vehicles and personal flying devices? These are some of the questions that Airbus’s Unmanned Traffic Management (UTM) Blueprint tries to answer.
Volocopter GmbH and Fraport AG (the manager of Frankfurt Airport) are developing concepts for ground infrastructure and operations required for air taxi services at airports. This cooperation focuses on smooth passenger handling and efficient integration into existing transport infrastructure. In the future, Voloports could link existing urban transportation junctions with one another and provide connections to and from Frankfurt Airport.
GoFly announced on Feb. 6 that 40 teams were officially participating in Phase II (the building phase) of its GoFly Prize competition. On March 26, GoFly will announce the Phase II winners and award $50,000 USD to up to four winning teams.
In the five years since the Vertical Flight Society hosted its first “Transformative Vertical Flight Concepts Joint Workshop on Enabling New Flight Concepts through Novel Propulsion and Energy Architectures,” electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft have evolved from a wide-eyed futuristic concept into an emerging business within the global aerospace industry.
Bloomberg stated on Jan. 23 that Airbus’s quad-duct CityAirbus eVTOL demonstrator was “poised for takeoff within weeks.” Initial tests will be brief unmanned hovers, building up to translating flight and longer missions.
On Jan. 29, Jetson Aero revealed its Speeder hoverbike prototype: a single-seat all-electric flying go-kart with four pairs of propellers powered by brushless electric motors. The company was founded in October 2017 and has carried out manned test flights, first in Tuscany, Italy, and then in Poznan, Poland.
