News

The First Electric VTOL Unicorn: Joby Aviation

• 05 Mar 2020 09:04 AM
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For the past 11 years, Joby Aviation has been on a quest to develop the ultimate electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, but few details of the company’s aircraft and progress have been shared with the public.

That changed in January when Joby stepped out of the shadows and released images of the production version of its all-electric, five-seat tiltrotor in conjunction with the announcement of a $590M Series C financing that brought the company’s total funding, including previous rounds, to $720M.

Urban Air Taxis Underway — UAM at Heli-Expo

• 02 Mar 2020 02:44 PM
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VFS members are well aware of the “Electric VTOL Revolution” that has been underway for several years, with more than 250 electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concepts on the VFS website, www.eVTOL.news. Most of the helicopter OEMs, most visibly Airbus Helicopters and Bell, have been considering eVTOL and urban air mobility (UAM) options for the future.

The ((Quiet)) Electric VTOL Revolution

• 02 Mar 2020 09:06 AM
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Electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft promise to be quieter than helicopters, but how much quieter? And how will that shape the future of urban air mobility (UAM)?

These are some of the questions that were addressed at “The ((Quiet)) Electric VTOL Revolution,” the third annual VFS eVTOL panel at the annual Helicopter Association International (HAI) Heli-Expo 2020 trade show. 

US Air Force Moves to Boost eVTOL Development

• 20 Feb 2020 03:20 PM
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The Air Force marked the 116th anniversary of the Dec. 17, 1903, Wright brothers flight at Kitty Hawk by issuing a request for information (RFI) aimed at helping foster a new powered flight revolution — electric or hybrid electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft — eventually self-flying.

Boeing Builds Star Wars Interceptors

• 07 Jan 2020 12:37 PM
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On Dec. 4, Disney unveiled its new “Rise of the Resistance” ride at the grand opening of its new “Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge” theme park in Orlando, Florida. Video of the nighttime event shows the two T-70 X-Wing fighters take off vertically, rotate and then translate forward away from the huge crowd. TheDrive.com website reported that the interceptors used the unmanned Boeing Cargo Air Vehicle (CAV) eVTOL aircraft as the platform for the two-thirds scale spaceships.

Harbour Air Flies eCTOL

• 07 Jan 2020 12:32 PM
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On Dec. 10, Harbour Air, North America’s largest seaplane airline conducted a successful flight of what is claimed was “the world’s first all-electric commercial aircraft.”

Luminati Creates Vertically Integrated VTOL Development Business

• 04 Jan 2020 12:51 PM
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In May 2019, Luminati Aerospace exhibited a vintage Gyrodyne XRON-1 Rotorcycle coaxial helicopter at the VFS Forum 75 in Philadelphia equipped with a small electric motor to power the pair of 20-ft (6-m) diameter rotor blades.

HopFlyt Hops to the Future

• 03 Jan 2020 11:11 AM
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A Maryland startup has combined a 90-year-old aircraft design that was ahead of its time with the latest breakthroughs in composite materials, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and an innovative tilt-wing configuration to develop an electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) flying taxi that could navigate high-rise urban landscapes.

Lilium Goes Its Own Way

• 03 Jan 2020 09:35 AM
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If German electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft developer Lilium GmbH had a theme song, it might be the Fleetwood Mac classic, “Go Your Own Way.” More than 150 companies worldwide, most of them startups, are pursuing the tantalizing vision of a multibillion-dollar eVTOL market, but Lilium’s aircraft design and business model go in drastically different directions from most of the rest.

Honeywell Goes “All In” on Urban Air Mobility

• 02 Jan 2020 09:18 PM
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On June 18, 1914, Lawrence Sperry of the Sperry Corporation performed a spectacular demonstration of his new invention, the gyroscopic autopilot, before a crowd assembled on the banks of the Seine River in France. Not content to simply lift his hands off the controls, Sperry actually left his pilot seat and crawled onto the wing of his Curtiss C-2 biplane to display his confidence in the device, launching a new era of automatic flight control.