In March, Fast Company named Joby Aviation to its 2021 list of the World’s Most Innovative Companies, and a Popular Science posting revealed the first clear photo of Joby’s first-generation S4 air taxi technology demonstrator (shown).
As mentioned last issue, Astro Aerospace of Dallas, Texas, announced in February that it would acquire Lindsay, Ontario-based Horizon Aircraft, Inc.
Rolls-Royce Electrical announced on March 9 that it was selected by Bristol, England’s Vertical Aerospace to power its all-electric VA-X4 air taxi (shown); Rolls-Royce acquired Germany-based Siemens’ electric aircraft propulsion systems business unit in 2019.
Seoul, Korea-based Aju Business Daily posted a story on March 29 reporting that Overair — which is 30% owned by Hanwha Systems — will be testing the electric propulsion system of its Butterfly quad-tiltrotor eVTOL this summer.
Austin, Texas-based LIFT Aircraft has continued working with the US Air Force’s Agility Prime program. On March 23–24, the Air Force moved one of the company’s HEXA single-seat eVTOL ultralights on an HC-130J transport aircraft from Springfield, Ohio (where it had been testing near the Air Force’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base) to LIFT’s hometown of Austin, Texas.
Embraer’s eVTOL subsidiary, Eve Urban Air Mobility Solutions, Inc., posted a video on its YouTube channel on March 17 that gave a number of insights into its developments.
In March, the eVTOL.com website broke the news that Bruchsal, Germany-based Volocopter GmbH had submitted a patent application in May 2020 for a tandem-winged multicopter.
After many months of rumors and speculation, Guangzhou, China-based EHang acknowledged in a tweet on March 9, “EHang has been developing long-range electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) vehicle for years.
On Feb. 24, emergency response and healthcare company Falck announced a collaboration with Kitty Hawk to consider its high-performance, single-seat Heaviside eVTOL for emergency response operations.
Numerous electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) designs rely on hybrid electric propulsion to offset the limited power density of current battery technology (see “Halfway to Paradise?” Vertiflite, Sept/Oct 2020).
