• 24 Oct 2023 09:26 AM
• 0

NBAA-BACE Showcases AAM

By Kenneth I. Swartz, Aeromedia
Vertiflite, January/February 2024

Nearly six years after Volocopter flew its electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for the first time in the United States on the Intel stage at the CES technology exhibit in Las Vegas, Nevada, the German aircraft developer returned to the city to fly daily at the National Business Aviation Association’s (NBAA) annual convention.

This year’s Business Aviation Convention and Exhibition (BACE) featured a number of advanced air mobility (AAM) exhibitors in the show’s innovation area and a series of presentations highlighting emerging technology and market challenges.

A number of other AAM companies — including Electra, Electric Power Systems (EPS), VoltAero and Wisk and USI — were also showcased at NBAA-BACE in the central concourse of the Las Vegas Convention Center. 

VoltAero displayed a mock-up of its Cassio 330 hybrid-electric eCTOL, and EPS displayed a mock-up of the electric propulsion unit that it’s developing for Diamond Aircraft's all-electric, single-engine eDA40 trainer aircraft.

Volocopter
For many in the business aviation community, this was the first time they could see an eVTOL fly. 

The early model Volocopter 2X (D-MDVC) made short, piloted flights over three days at Henderson Executive Airport. The 2X flew over the airport runway and taxiway adjacent to the NBAA static aircraft display where corporate jets, turboprops and executive helicopters made by leading companies like Airbus, Bell, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, Honda, Pilatus and Textron were on display.

The German company has been regularly flying its multicopter in several countries around the world for a number of years to build public awareness and acceptance. Volocopter first flew at a large US aviation event in July 2021 at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA) AirVenture in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and this year in Dallas, Texas; Tampa, Florida; and New York City, before the demo aircraft was to be shipped to Japan.

Volocopter executive Oliver Reinhardt told NBAA attendees that the company plans to operate flights between Paris’ Charles de Gaulle and Le Bourget airports (and other sites) during the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, followed by operations in Rome and then Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan.

Reinhardt said planning for the launch of the Paris route was not a simple matter of establishing a specific route between the two airports but developing a multifaceted concept of operations (ConOps) that had to connect “two big airports [with] multiple runways, [and] crossing runways [and] a difficult airspace structure.”

The ConOps “actually blew up into something like 32 different variants of routings, depending on which runway is active, what airspace is activated [and] how we fit in between and squeeze through that. That was a really interesting experience.… [and] it worked out; it's possible and it looks good.”

Volocopter will also play an important air transportation role in Saudi Arabia’s ambitious Neom megaproject that will see $500B invested in transforming barren desert in the northwestern Tabuk Province — adjacent to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba — into a series of futuristic communities and resort developments powered solely with wind and solar power. 

Volocopter and Neom have had a joint venture since 2021, which included the Saudi company ordering 15 aircraft and investing $175M in Volocopter's Series E funding round in November 2022.

Plans call for all three of Volocopter’s eVTOL aircraft models — the VoloDrone, VoloCity and the VoloRegion — to play a role supporting Neom’s future transportation and logistics needs, which will also see the construction of four airports throughout the Neom region.

Wisk
Wisk displayed a full-scale mock-up of its autonomous Generation 6 air taxi and a separate full cabin mock-up. The company highlighted its recent public flight demonstrations of its Cora at AirVenture and promoted its first-ever eVTOL demonstration flights in the greater Los Angeles area (see “eVTOL Leaders Continue to Accelerate Progress,” pg. 66). In 2022, Wisk announced a partnership with Long Beach through the city’s Long Beach Economic Partnership (LBEP). The partnership is focused on evaluating, planning, and implementing AAM in Long Beach as part of a broader regional network, with a focus on autonomous flight. 

A week after NBAA-BACE, Wisk released a sponsored research report on the economic impact of AAM for the Los Angeles region, which was conducted by California State University, Long Beach. Titled, “The Positive Economic Impact of a New Industry: A Long Beach Case Study,” states that the construction of a 20-vertiport network would generate “2,133 jobs, $174.0 million in labor income, and $423.6 million in economic output.” The report also says that the vertiport network, once operational, would annually “generate $173.3 million in expenditures, deliver $90.3 million in labor income and create 943 jobs.” 

Airbus Helicopters
Six years ago, Airbus launched the Airbus Corporate Helicopters (ACH) brand to market its helicopters to businesses and high net worth individuals. This year, it debuted the first ACH160 to tour North America (F-WHFF) and revealed that four ACH160s were undergoing customer completion at its facilities in Grande Prairie, Texas, and the first Canadian aircraft in Fort Erie, Ontario.

Airbus says the ACH160 can accommodate up to 10 passengers, has a maximum cruise speed of 155 kt (290 km/h), a 460-nm (852-km) range and a maximum endurance of 4.5 hours.

The H160 received certification from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) on July 1, 2020, and validation by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on June 30, 2023; Airbus announced on Dec. 6 that the H160 had received its Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) certification. Shell has also selected Petroleum Helicopters International (PHI) to operate four Airbus H160 in support of its offshore oil exploration and production in the US Gulf of Mexico. 

The ACH160 was parked next to the first Airbus Corporate Jets ACJ TwoTwenty, which made its NBAA-BACE debut. It’s the business aircraft version of the A220 commercial airliner built by Airbus at factories in Montreal, Quebec, and Mobil, Alabama.

Airbus helicopters were also in the sky over NBAA-BACE with Blade operating a regular shuttle service between the Las Vegas Convention Center and the static display at Henderson Executive Airport using single-engine H125s and H130s, flown by one of its charter partners.

Textron eAviation
Textron eAviation was established in Wichita, Kansas, in March 2021 and acquired Pipistrel Aircraft of Slovenia — a pioneer in electric aviation — in April 2022. Kriya Shortt took over as President and CEO of Textron eAviation from founding president Rob Scholl on Aug. 31, 2023, and NBAA-BACE was one of the first industry events she attended in her new leadership role.

Shortt said the company is leveraging Pipistrel’s technology portfolio to create new products, with the Nuuva V300 unmanned cargo eVTOL expected to fly in early 2024 — utilizing the same electric motors and batteries as used on the Pipistrel Velis Electro two-seat training aircraft — before the introduction of a hybrid-electric propulsion system for forward flight. 

Shortt also believes that electric training aircraft can help play a significant role to “lower the barrier of entry” when it comes to the “cost for new pilot starts,” with the Velis Electro having about a “75% less cost on a direct operating perspective, which we think allows a lot of new pilot starts” as the electric aircraft joins the fleets of flight training schools.

In early July, the company announced it had commenced wind tunnel testing to support the development of its Nexus eVTOL aircraft. A 23%-scale model is being used to evaluate the propellers at the full range of conversion angles and power levels, drawing on Textron’s decades of test experience from its tiltrotor, turboprop and jet aircraft product development.

VoltAero
VoltAero of France is developing a family of hybrid-electric short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft to serve the general aviation and regional air mobility market. 

The company was co-founded by CEO Jean Botti and Technical Director Didier Esteyne in November 2017. They were the driving force behind the E-Fan electric aircraft program when Botti was the CTO of Airbus Group and Esteyne the pilot and designer.

Botti spent more than 20 years in the automotive industry — including work on the pioneering General Motors EV1 — before joining Airbus in 2006. His experience developing two battery-electric aircraft convinced him that hybrid-electric propulsion was the best answer for regional air mobility (RAM) because of the longer range it provides.

“There is a huge opportunity for replacement because there are 40,000 aircraft there that are more than 25 years old in general aviation,” said Botti, speaking at the NBAA-BACE Newsmakers Lunch, “Electric Aircraft Takes Flight.”

Botti says that there are 2,500 airports and airfields in Europe, “with 43 of them accounting for 90% of the passenger traffic,” with the other airports providing an ideal launch pad for “interregional mobility” using hybrid-electric powered aircraft. 

On March 10, 2020, the company’s Cassio S testbed (a highly modified Cessna 337) flew with two wing-mounted, forward-facing Safran ENGINeUS 45 electric motors. The aircraft has been used over the past three years to validate the company’s hybrid-electric propulsion system, which combines an internal combustion engine with three electric motors driving a single pusher propeller. 

Today, VoltAero is developing a family of three different size Cassio aircraft that will be certified under EASA Certification Specification CS-23. All will use the company’s patented series/parallel hybrid power module in an aft-mounted pusher propeller configuration, which combines an internal combustion engine power with three electric motors: the five-seat Cassio 330 (330 kW); six-seat Cassio 480 (480 kW) and 10–12-seat Cassio 600 (600 kW).

For flights under 80 nm (150 km), batteries will be the primary source of energy for the Cassio, with the hybrid propulsion system primarily used as a range extender to recharge the batteries in flight, and it serves as a backup in the event of a problem with the electric propulsion system. 

VoltAero also believes its hybrid propulsion system is suitable for installation in helicopters. Company marketing documents explain that “the take-off would typically use both power sources” and landings “in a fully electric mode” with potential fuel savings of “up to 50 percent” compared to current-generation turbine engines and much less noise on landing.

A few weeks prior to NBAA-BACE, VoltAero established a new milestone when it flew its Cassio S with 100% sustainable fuel provided by TotalEnergies at its test facility at Aérodrome de Royan-Médis in southwest France. The Excellium Racing 100 fuel has been used since 2022 in certain automobile competitions.

In May, Kawasaki Motors Ltd. became a strategic investor in VoltAero, joining Series B funding for the development, production and certification of VoltAero’s Cassio hybrid-electric aircraft family.

Electra Aero
Electra.aero Inc. believes that combining hybrid-electric propulsion with blown-wing aerodynamics is the pathway to capturing a large share of the regional air mobility market.

Speaking at the NBAA-BACE Newsmakers Lunch, the Electra’s Chief Product Officer Marc Ausman said the company believes that there is a great market opportunity for a quiet electric aircraft with lower operating costs “to drop into existing charter operations today” compared to start-up eVTOL operations that are “betting their business model” on a lot of new infrastructure being built in downtown and urban environments.

Electra is currently developing a hybrid-electric, ultra-short takeoff and landing (eSTOL) aircraft with a Safran 300-kW electric turbogenerator. The eSTOL aircraft will carry nine passengers with bags, cruise at 200 mph (320 km/h), have a range of 500 miles (800 km) with a 45-minute reserve, and will safely take off and land from a 300-ft (90-m) long runway.

The company holds pre-orders for its eSTOL aircraft from more than 30 customers for over 1,700 aircraft, totaling more than $6B in backlog, said Ausman, with many of those customers being FAA Part 135 operators that currently fly Beech King Airs, Britten-Norman BN-2 Islanders, Cessna 208 Caravans, de Havilland Canada Beavers and Otters, or Pilatus PC-12s.

“Our aircraft can drop into those operations today and there is no change to air traffic control procedures. You don’t need charging infrastructure because its hybrid,” he said. The company’s market entry strategy is based on replacing existing aircraft and “then new infrastructure will be built to support it which could include expanding existing helipads or using a parking lot or a road” to take advantage of the aircraft’s extreme STOL performance.

Ausman said Electra opted for hybrid-electric technology because “battery-electric aircraft are so limited in their range, especially if you are designing the aircraft for IFR [instrument flight rules] operations that include a couple of missed approaches, a weather diversion and 45 minutes of reserves. 

“We believe the market for pure battery-electric is really small today. And it will be that way for decades,” said Ausman, “so for the next 20 or 30 years, hybrid-electric will be the primary bulk of flights in the regional mobility market. At least that our view, and why we’re making a bet on it.”