A confluence of technical, business and societal developments in recent years is driving an expectation that air transportation will be transformed to cut urban daily commute times dramatically, enable faster emergency response, and allow inter- and intra-city transportation at costs competitive to traveling by car, bus or train.
Uber said that by the time flight demonstration programs begin in 2020, they will have to validate that they have mitigated the three biggest risks: efficient flights (airspace acceptance), noise (community acceptance) and safety (passenger acceptance). Note that Uber is not funding the development of the aircraft, but is helping to facilitate connections between investors and developers.
The aviation industry descended on the beautiful French capital once again over a very hot June, with air temperatures reaching above 95°F (35°C). This year saw not just current rotorcraft, but also future vertical flight innovations, particularly from American, French and Turkish industrial participants.
The joint 5th Transformative Vertical Flight Workshop will be held as part of the AHS International Technical Meeting "Aeromechanics Design for Transformative Vertical Flight." Plan now to attend — just minutes from the Uber world headquarters, the event will highlight eVTOL developers from Silicon Valley and around the world!
The UKi Future of Transportation World Conference was held 5-6 July in Cologne, Germany. The session on "Getting Transportation Off the Ground" focused on how electric VTOL and "personal airborne transportation systems (PATS) will shake up personal transportation before 2030.
Serious progress is being made around the world in eVTOL development. Here is a roundup of recent news that has come out since the detailed article in the last issue of Vertiflite.
Airbus Decides to Pop Up
Airbus XO, the company’s innovation group, revealed a concept for “seamless, multi-modal, fully electric urban mobility.”
The Elevate Summit, a conference to promote the air taxi concept, hosted in Dallas, Texas, April 25–27, by cell phone ride-paging service Uber, attracted advocates and expert speakers from nearly every industry and regulatory agency with a role to play in turning the eVTOL dream into reality.
To those immersed in the world of traditional helicopters, it may take a little time to fully comprehend what Uber Elevate’s on-demand urban air transportation vision actually entails.
At the Forum 73 Grand Awards Banquet, the leaders of the major rotorcraft manufacturers and Uber Technologies’ chief of product development talked about the future of vertical flight. Uber imagines a world where on-demand transportation leverages the vertical dimension to connect people efficiently and affordably through a network of vertiports with electrically-powered VTOL aircraft. A score of companies are now developing one- to four-seat aircraft that could enable achieve this vision. (See “Charging Forward”)
On June 8, 2017, Paul DeLorean, CEO and chief designer at DeLorean Aerospace, unveiled a concept video and illustrations of the two-seat DR-7 electric VTOL.
According to DeLorean, the DR-7 is designed to be a personal commuter aircraft that would have a much broader market appeal than conventional planes and helicopters, due to its high-speed efficiency, VTOL function and autonomous control system.
