Category Filtering: 'ectol-estol'
Nearly 60 of the world’s leading electric aircraft developers and technology experts will be speaking at the CAFE Foundation’s 15th Annual Electric Aircraft Symposium (EAS), held online next week on July 20-22, 2021. Registration information and details are available at www.vtol.org/eas.
In early June, Electra.aero and Airflow.aero announced major news for their electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) designs. Airflow, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, announced that it will supply 50 eSTOL aircraft (shown) to Anchorage-based regional airline, Ravn Alaska.
At the VFS eVTOL Symposium in January, San Francisco, California-based Airflow announced that it was beginning development of “one of the first full-scale piloted technology demonstrators of an eSTOL aircraft.” For the last year, Airflow has been utilizing a sub-scale model for test flights that have helped develop its eSTOL flight control technology.
A year after the electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft industry saw its first start-up valued at more than $1B (see “The First Electric VTOL Unicorn: Joby Aviation,” Vertiflite, March/April 2020), a growing number of companies across the advanced air mobility (AAM) industry are looking to merge with a Special Purpose Acquisition Company (SPAC) that is already publicly traded to raise the funds necessary to bankroll future growth.
Tecnam has partnered with Rolls-Royce to develop a nine-passenger eCTOL aircraft called the P-Volt, the Italian aircraft company announced on Oct. 23. The two companies are already collaborating on a hybrid-electric version of its four-seat Tecnam P2010 Traveller.
California-based Metro Hop, Inc., announced on Nov. 30 that its newly formed German division, Metro Hop Technik GMBH, had been awarded a grant from the European Space Agency Business Incubation Centre (ESA BIC). Metro Hop has been developing an all-electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft (shown) with its patented “Active Landing Gear” system, used to accelerate the plane to flight speed on takeoff and decelerate the plane after landing.
Electric conventional takeoff and landing (eCTOL) aircraft are anything but conventional, but include many of the same challenges as electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, most especially, of course, with the power systems.
Slovenia’s Pipistrel has received a Type Certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) for its Velis Electro, a full-electric derivative of its proven Virus SW 121. The company said the Velis Electro is the world’s first electric-powered airplane to receive a Type Certificate (EASA.A.573 TCDS, dated May 18, 2020).
