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.
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.
Chung Euisun, executive vice chairman at Hyundai Motor Group, revealed that the automaker planned to develop an air taxi service. According to the Pulse, Chung said: “Our plan is to introduce UAM vehicles in 2023 and to provide its commercial service in 2029 after ironing out regulation issues.”
On Oct. 30, drone manufacturer and eVTOL developer EHang filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its $100M initial public offering (IPO) on the US Nasdaq stock exchange. The paperwork for the Guangzhou-based company noted that it had delivered 38 “passenger-grade” autonomous aerial vehicle (AAVs) to customers “for testing, training, and demonstration purposes and developed two command-and-control centers for smart city management.”
In October, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) updated its Aviation Accident Preliminary Report on the June 4 crash of the Aurora Flight Sciences “Pegasus” Passenger Air Vehicle (PAV) demonstrator. The unmanned aircraft (N83AU), sized for two seats, was destroyed on its fifth flight.
On Dec. 1, the vertical flight community learned that the Cora two-seat, lift-plus-cruise electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) program was moving to a joint venture established by The Boeing Company and Kitty Hawk Corporation called Wisk Aero.
This is quite the remarkable accomplishment for the Silicon Valley technology company, considering that most in the aerospace community didn’t know that this stealth eVTOL program existed less than two years ago.
European views on how soon and how best electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft might create new transportation markets differ — in some cases strongly — with the vision being pushed by urban air mobility (UAM) promoters, such as Uber. At its Uber Elevate Summit in Washington in June, the ride-hailing company promised it was on track to launch air taxi demonstration flights with its partners in the Dallas/Fort Worth area in 2020 and to begin actual commercial service in 2023.
Summer 2019 brought 70 interns — from Puerto Rico, 44 continental US states, Sweden, and the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago — into the NASA Ames Aeromechanics Branch. Some were high school students learning engineering for the first time, while most were mechanical and aerospace engineering students, though two physics majors and a math major jumped into the mix to provide balance.
On Dec. 20, Uber announced that the company had signed a multi-year commercial partnership with Joby Aviation to launch a fast, reliable, clean and affordable urban air taxi service in select markets. Joby will supply and operate the electric air taxis, and Uber will provide airspace support services, skyport infrastructure, connections to ground transportation and customer interfaces through its aerial rideshare network.
Joby Aviation and Uber have signed a multi-year commercial partnership to launch a fast, reliable, clean and affordable urban air taxi service in select markets. Joby Aviation will supply and operate the electric air taxis, and Uber will provide airspace support services, skyport infrastructure, connections to ground transportation, and customer interfaces through an aerial rideshare network.
