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The US Air Force officially launched its Agility Prime initiative when it issued a request for information (RFI) on Dec. 17, 2019 — the 116th anniversary of the Wright Flyer making the first heavier-than-air powered flight. In the first intake of companies in the Air Force’s “Air Race to Certification,” some 20 eVTOL companies applied to participate.
This year, the US Air Force’s Agility Prime initiative will help finance the flight test and certification efforts of about 20 different eVTOL aircraft participating in its “Air Race to Certification” program.
The Vertical Flight Society has been working to advance electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft since 2013, providing technical, professional and business resources to this burgeoning sector. As a leading advocate of the “Electric VTOL Revolution,” VFS has been holding its Electric VTOL Symposiums since 2014, started its Electric VTOL Newsletter in 2016, and launched its Electric VTOL website in 2017.
June 12 saw the much-awaited unveiling of Beta Technologies’ Alia eVTOL when the company authorized journalist Eric Adams (a past Vertiflite contributor) to release photos and information on the aircraft.
The US Air Force got an unexpected payoff in April from, of all things, the novel coronavirus pandemic. COVID-19 led the service to officially launch Agility Prime — its initiative to boost electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft and related technologies — online instead of live. Broad participation by senior military officers and government officials in the quickly organized “virtual conference” showed significant support for Agility Prime within federal ranks.
Beta Technologies has developed a modular charging station ahead of expected demand by operators of eVTOL aircraft, drones and conventional helicopters. The Vermont based company founded in 2017 said its station can be configured quickly in a variety of locations — ranging from dense urban centers to remote outposts — and with several optional modules — from a pilot lounge and sleeping quarters to an elevated landing deck — depending on the mission and environment.
Vertiflite contributor Elan Head was one of a select few journalists to attend TexasUP, held Nov. 19-21, on Ross Perot, Jr.’s Circle T Ranch near Fort Worth, Texas. This third annual summit of investors and developers was organized by JetAviva co-founders Cyrus Sigari and Ben Marcus, who is also the co-founder and chairman of drone traffic management company, AirMap. With about 160 attendees, Sigari estimated that they represented over $100B of investable capital.
Clark: Originally, there was a Lancair ES, which is a fixed-gear, four-seater aircraft. We thought the path we could go down was to modify that aircraft, apply for an experimental major modification, keep the original air worthiness certificate, and circumnavigate the airworthiness certification. That didn’t work. The FAA put the brakes on it, because we only used the glass, the doors and the very center section of the fuselage. They said it’s a fresh airplane: you have to do an airworthiness certificate.
For many entrants in the race to develop electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, the speculative air taxi market is the prize at the end of the finish line — one that could someday yield orders for thousands of aircraft to ferry millions of passengers around congested cities. However, with numerous regulatory and social barriers standing in the way of that market — on top of the very real technological challenges associated with building and flying eVTOL aircraft — this type of on-demand urban air mobility (UAM) could take many years to come to fruition.
