• 10 Oct 2023 06:30 AM
• 0

VFS Electric VTOL Directory Hits 900 Concepts

Designs by more than 400 companies and innovators catalogued

The Vertical Flight Society (VFS), the world’s leading non-profit organization working to advance vertical flight, announces today that the number of electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft concepts being tracked in its World eVTOL Aircraft Directory has now exceeded 900 designs from more than 400 companies and innovators worldwide. The directory is part of the VFS Electric VTOL News website, www.eVTOL.news, the world’s oldest and most extensive online resource on eVTOL aircraft and technology. Every leading eVTOL company is a member of VFS, which has more than 175 corporate members worldwide.

The World eVTOL Aircraft Directory is divided up into propulsion system approaches, and as of Oct. 10, 2023, includes 320 concepts using various vectored thrust propulsion, 149 lift + cruise configurations, 263 wingless/multicopter concepts, 109 designs for hover bikes and personal flying devices and 59 electric rotorcraft. These concepts are from 413 different companies. organizations, designers and inventors. 

After supporting the eVTOL community beginning in 2013, VFS started an eVTOL newsletter in 2016 and began tracking the public designs. VFS launched the website in April 2017, when the list of known eVTOL programs that were under development reached about a dozen.

Over the years, designs have been added at an ever-increasing pace. The number of design concepts catalogued (both active and defunct designs) has continued to accelerate each year — an average of nearly four concepts per week. The directory grew at a rate of about one aircraft per week during the first years, but this accelerated to an average rate of two aircraft per week — with 100 aircraft catalogued by July 2018, 200 by September 2019, 300 by July 2020, 500 by August 2021, 600 in January 2022, 700 in August 2022 and 800 by April 2023 — as new aircraft concepts are unveiled. 

The free website now hosts some 875 eVTOL news stories, including more than 350 in-depth articles from the Society’s Vertiflite magazine, the leading periodical on eVTOL and rotorcraft developments.

This explosive growth in interest in electric vertical flight has been accompanied by major investments in this emerging technology with billions of dollars raised by the leading companies to fund new eVTOL aircraft development, supporting technologies and the entire advanced air mobility (AAM) ecosystem. The development of these innovative VTOL aircraft concepts has attracted an entirely new generation of engineers and technologists and software developers to the aerospace industry and the vertical flight sector.

VFS has been at the forefront of what it calls the “Electric VTOL Revolution” since 2014 when it held the world’s first meeting of the eVTOL development community. Its 11th Annual Electric VTOL Symposium (www.vtol.org/TVF2024) is planned for Feb. 6-8, 2024, in Santa Clara, California, in conjunction with the Society's 6th Decennial Aeromechanics Specialists' Conference, both part of Transformative Vertical Flight 2024 (TVF2024). The annual Electric VTOL Symposium is the world's largest and longest-running event on electric VTOL aircraft. 

When VFS launched the first TVF meeting in 2014, the idea of electric VTOL aircraft was greeted with widespread skepticism, but growing technical progress, flight demonstrations, certification progress, government validation and private investment have helped reverse public perception. It is now recognized that the vertical flight market is poised for significant expansion over the next few years as eVTOL aircraft enter service that can have higher performance than conventional helicopters for certain missions, as well as lower operating costs and lower noise. The Society also helped launch the joint VFS/NASA TVF working groups in 2017 (www.vtol.org/tvf). 

Since then, VFS has also launched a series of additional workshops and working groups on critical issues. The first annual workshop in North America on hydrogen for aviation was held in March 2022 after two years of working group meetings (www.vtol.org/hydrogen). The next annual workshop is planned for March 2024 in Charlotte, North Carolina, in conjunction SAE International's AeroTech conference.

VFS also held the world's first workshop on AAM Infrastructure in 2019, and just held the 7th Workshop on AAM Infrastructure on Sept. 26-28, 2023, in Cape May, New Jersey, in support of the nearby US Federal Aviation Administration's Technical Center. 

In December, VFS is holding the First International Conference on Advanced Air Mobility Systems in Bengaluru, India, on Dec. 4-6, 2023, including a half-day workshop on "Enhancing Future VTOL Usage in Indian Airspace." Other events can be found at www.vtol.org/events. 

VFS was founded as the American Helicopter Society in 1943 by the visionaries of the early helicopter industry, who believed that technological cooperation and collaboration were essential to support this new type of aircraft. Today, history is repeating itself, with VFS playing a similar role helping to advance today’s revolutionary eVTOL aircraft. 

VFS is @VTOLsociety on social media: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Mastodon, TikTok, Threads, Twitter, Vimeo and YouTube, and also has @ElectricVTOL channels on Facebook, Mastodon and Twitter.

The image featured at the top of the page is the Flyt Aerospace Red Hummingbird, a concept design for a wingless multicopter (no propulsors for cruise – only for lift). This was the most recent aircraft added on Oct. 10, 2023. 

To have your eVTOL or hybrid-electric VTOL concept designs, subscale prototypes, test beds, proof of concepts, full scale prototypes and production models featured in our Aircraft Directory at no charge, please email the Vertical Flight Society with your name, phone number, website (if you have one) and details of your aircraft at: news@evtol.news