On Aug. 26, Bell announced the first autonomous flight of its largest Autonomous Pod Transport (APT) to date. The APT 70 is part of the eVTOL family of vehicles the company is developing. It has a baseline payload capability of 70 lb (32 kg) and can reach speeds of more than 100 mph (160km/h).
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced on Aug. 24 that the UK government was kicking off a $385M (£300M) Future Flight initiative. The government will provide about 42% (£125M), supported by industry co-investment of the rest (up to £175M) to “support exciting new technologies including flying urban taxis, electric passenger planes and even freight-carrying drones.” This is on top of the nearly £2B the UK is investing in aviation research and technology, through the Aerospace Technology Institute (ATI) program. The first Future Flight Challenge competition, to create compelling concept studies, opened Sept. 30.
Bristol, UK-based startup Vertical Aerospace has released flight footage of its second-generation aircraft. The prototype, named Seraph, completed its maiden flight at Llanbedr Airfield in Wales on Aug. 22. It follows the successful flight of Vertical Aerospace’s first full-scale prototype in May 2018.
San Francisco-based Elroy Air conducted the first flight of its 1,215-lb (550-kg) Chaparral hybrid-electric, heavy-lift cargo drone. The one-minute, Aug. 14 flight was conducted at Camp Roberts, California.
On Sept. 10–12, the Vertical Flight Society hosted its first workshop on the defining challenges of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for urban air mobility (UAM) missions. Held at the US Navy Memorial Visitor Center in Washington, DC, this three-day meeting worked to identify the foundational elements needed to support this growing industry beyond the aircraft technology development, such as infrastructure, air traffic management and system safety.
As reported previously, South Korean industrial giant Hanwha is investing $25M in a spin-off from Karem Aircraft, Inc. dedicated to bringing Butterfly, its all-electric air taxi vehicle, to market. The spin-off entity is to be named “Overair, Inc.,” though was identified as K4 Aeronautics in initial press releases. The Butterfly uses Karem’s patented high efficiency VTOL technology, and is being developed for Uber’s Elevate Initiative.
Boeing announced Oct. 10 that it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Volkswagen subsidiary Porsche to “explore the premium urban air mobility market and the extension of urban traffic into airspace.” Boeing, Porsche and Boeing subsidiary Aurora Flight Sciences are also developing a concept for a fully electric VTOL aircraft.
Like the bright blue frames of his trendy spectacles, Dr. Matthias Bittner is cheery. And why not? As chief operating officer of Gilching, Germany-based startup AutoFlightX — a position the 34-year-old aeronautical engineer calls his “first real job in industry” — Bittner is part of a team of fewer than 10 trying to help their company’s Chinese entrepreneur founder, electric aircraft pioneer Tian Yu, change the world through urban air mobility (UAM).
According to Automotive News Europe on Oct. 14, Audi has stopped work on the Pop.Up multi-modal eVTOL concept — which consists of an electric automotive chassis, a detachable people-pod, and an autonomous quad copter propulsion system — that its subsidiary Ital design had been developing with Airbus. In a statement, Audi said: “We believe it will be a very long time before an air taxi can be serially produced that does not require passengers to change vehicles. In the modular concept of Pop.Up, we were working on a solution with the highest complexity.”
Chinese drone maker EHang delivered the first batch of “passenger grade” EHang 216 autonomous aerial vehicles (AAVs) in June, followed by a second batch in October. The company says these aircraft have now reached customers in Asia, Europe and North America.
